Parking is perhaps one of the most contentious topics for a small — but rapidly growing — town like Squamish.
We have to face the reality that more than half the town commutes, and the jobs that pay well enough to sustain the cost of living here are, often, not here.
While there has been an effort on the municipality’s part to attract jobs to town, this has been a long, drawn-out process that has resulted in many plans and strategies.
However, these will take time to translate into tangible results, and, at least in the short to medium term, we still have a massive shortage of local well-paid jobs.
The previous census in 2016 showed that about half of Squamish’s workforce had to drive more than 15 minutes to work, which — given that the entire District takes about 15 minutes to drive — suggests that about half of the people at the time had to drive out of town to get to their jobs.
The results from the latest census, which took place in 2021, are being released bit by bit.
The first finding, which was released this month, was that Squamish’s population has increased a great deal, jumping up to 23,819, up from 19,497 in the previous census year.
I would expect that this uptick in population will, at the very least, keep the commuting population at its status quo, though, more likely, it will increase that number.
At the end of the day, the pressure that this will put on our parking infrastructure will be significant.
Many new developments are offering one parking spot per residential unit, but many units will have more than one occupant, and, therefore, more than one driver needing to travel outside town to work and pay the bills.
At the same time, we have to acknowledge the damaging effect of vehicles.
The summer of 2021 was certain proof that climate change is a problem that can’t be ignored.
The extreme heat was not just an inconvenience — it was responsible for close 600 deaths in B.C., and wiped the village of Lytton clean off the map.
With less than a decade left to severely cut emissions and keep global warming under the 1.5 C disaster threshold, we need to act with the quickness that we did with the pandemic.
Fossil fuel consumption must be cut drastically very quickly. Some could rightfully question the validity of encouraging vehicle use — which building new parking stalls does — in the middle of a climate emergency.
Locally, however, this leaves us with the unappetizing choice of either facing disastrous climate events in less than a decade, or being unable to travel to work, and, therefore, be unable to put food on the table in the immediate future.
At the end of the day, a balance between the two is likely to leave no one happy.
