Given the concern expressed by the “Community” Centre Commission over heritage trees falling upon and killing innocent children, I hope that decisions around their parking lot will also aim to protect these same sweet souls.
As the B.C. Coroners Service reports that seven children under 16 were killed in motor vehicle incidents in 2015 while there were, I’m making an educated guess here, a grand total of zero children killed in that same year by falling trees, the urgency of dealing with the automobile situation is evident. That is not even taking into account how our overuse of the automobile is adding to climate change which, by the way that we are going, will kill us all; the children and the guilty adults.
To prevent these senseless deaths the CCC must want to discourage automobile use.
One thing that the CCC can do is to start charging for parking. Parking fees are a widely used tool to discourage people from using private vehicles and encourage them to take up options such as walking, biking and transit. They also take into account the huge expense of providing “free” parking due to the cost of the lot itself, plus the underutilization of valuable land. Let the users pay rather than having the parking lot costs shared by all community centre users (and non-users).Another option is to make the parking lot smaller, thus making its use less convenient and again encouraging alternate transportation options.
I look forward to the CCC making these changes.
Warren Chapman
Duncan