Columnists
Losing the village perk
Councillor Mike Harper proved at his Town Hall meeting on January 9 that he is adept at juggling. He ran a brisk two-hour meeting that covered a lot of bases—including the great clear garbage bag experiment, the future of the Wellington Town Hall, the water supply situation with its $100 million cost estimate, the offloading of the empty corner store, the need to bolster the thinning ranks of local volunteers, the obligation of the County to provide stewardship of Wellington Beach and the status of property development in the village. Most left the meeting feeling that they had had an opportunity to air their views.
There was one other subject that Mr. Harper covered. That was traffic in the village. The issues with traffic are safety and congestion.
On the safety front, Mr. Harper announced that traffic speeds would soon be reduced to 40km/hr along the core of downtown Main Street, that a pedestrian crossing would be installed on Main Street near the post office and CML Snider School, and that it would no longer be possible to turn onto Main Street from West Street. These are all positive changes.
On the congestion front, Mr. Harper suggested that cars pay for the privilege of parking in downtown Wellington, but with a twist. Local residents would be exempt from paying. Apparently, some other jurisdictions have adopted this two-tier scheme, and it is technically possible to distinguish visitor cars from local cars.
This suggestion needs more debate.
One can readily imagine the difficulties. Should free parking be extended to all Country residents, or restricted to those who live in Wellington? Where do the metropolitan Wellington boundaries lie? A sixth generation County-raised senior now lives in Belleville, but still considers herself a ‘local’: who is going to want to get into a traffic ticketing fight with her? A County resident buys his car in Trenton; does this mean that he is not local?
And what about the average tourist with no County connection who is squarely in the sights of the parking charge. How is he going to feel about being charged a fee someone else is not? He could take away a negative message about the County and tell all of his neighbours and friends how he feels about it.
If County residents get their parking free while others must pay, what will they come to expect. That they can cut into lineups at ice cream parlours? That they have the exclusive right to walk on the sunny side of the street?
I would prefer not to have to fish for change every time I have to stop in front of the hardware store for five minutes to pick up a carton of milk. Free parking is one of the perks of living in a village; as we have to live without the vast array of amenities offered to Picton residents, free parking in Wellington seems like a satisfactory bargain.
But is traffic congestion really such a problem in Wellington that we need to address it by instituting paid parking? Congestion is largely a summer Saturday phenomenon brought about by the success of the Wellington market: traffic is parked for a few hours all along Main Street together with several of its feeder streets. Some fix that is oriented to that specific problem— such as having a shuttle to the Wellington Arena parking lot—would be better than a paid parking regime. And to the extent that all-day parkers add to the congestion, that could be fixed by enforcement of a two-hour limit and provision of all day parking facilities on the outskirts of the village.
Councillor Harper has suggested that the prospect of paid parking in Wellington is better thought of as part of an overall tourist plan for the County, a major goal of which would be to get tourists to pay more for the wear and tear that they take on the County’s resources. Among the things to be looked at are charging for parking in both Bloomfield and Wellington, as well as for the use of boat launches and marinas. I wish council luck in developing its plan; making people pay for things they once didn’t have to is no fun.
I can see the day when the village perk of free parking gives way to the broader objective of raising money from tourists. I’ll mark that day by shedding a small tear. And if parking charges there must be, I’d sooner be placed on an equal footing with visitors and pay for my parking rather than benefit from a privilege not afforded to others.
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