City council has abandoned efforts to provide more parking stalls around the Village Transit Station, citing high costs and safety concerns.
The city had been negotiating with two landowners in the vicinity of the park and ride facility in the hope of leasing land and reducing pressure on the 500 parking spots currently available for commuters who take St. Albert Transit into Edmonton.
A vacant lot behind the Petro Canada station at St. Albert Trail and Gate Avenue could be leased for about $40,000 a year but the site would need about $295,000 worth of work to make it function as a parking lot, council heard.
The lot would provide an extra 54 stalls, estimated planning and engineering general manager Neil Jamieson.
A second vacant site across the street, at 203 St. Albert Trail, could be leased from Imperial Oil for $1 a year if the city agreed to take on its maintenance. The site would provide about 40 stalls but it would cost about $10,000 to do a design study and estimate the cost of required upgrades, Jamieson said.
Council feared those costs would be in the same ballpark as the Gate Avenue site.
Coun. Malcolm Parker had serious concerns about the safety of having vehicles turning in and out of the former gas station site at 203 St. Albert Trail. He moved to drop negotiations on both sites. Council agreed, passing the motion unanimously.
“To spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on 40 stalls at this stage just doesn’t feel like a good use of money,” said Mayor Nolan Crouse.
“That site 203 is, to me, a disaster,” said Coun. Wes Brodhead, shaking his head at the prospect of people racing across the trail to catch their bus.
“I think our money and efforts should go toward LRT and the park and ride on the south side,” said Coun. Len Bracko.
A new park and ride facility at St. Albert’s southern edge is on a list of priorities approved by the Capital Region Board but the province hasn’t yet allocated any of the $800 million in Green Trip money it’s expected to provide to Capital region projects. The city also hasn’t secured land for the project.
City administration believes the 1,750-stall facility could be open as early as 2013.
A shortage of park and ride spaces has been a perennial problem at Village Landing. Last year the city tried a park and ride shuttle from Akinsdale/Kinex arenas but it attracted few users and was quickly dropped.
“Since that time we’ve been looking for alternatives. These [vacant lots] are the only two that we’ve been able to find within a reasonable proximity,” said city manager Bill Holtby.
There have been few complaints about transit parking this year, he said.
