Ending Free Parking Won’t Solve Alberta’s Problems

There are a lot of problems facing the world right now, such as famine, poverty, climate change and a global economic meltdown.

Canada itself is not immune for these aforementioned problems; our home and native land also has enough worries to cause some serious wrinkles on our leaders foreheads, including, but not limited to, politicians that don’t understand that EVERYONE can read your inane musings on the internet so maybe think before you type, a budget deficit bigger than I can count and a “sexy” lack of isotopes.

Okay, yes, our country’s problems are huge. But let’s focus for a moment on our beloved province Alberta. Alberta, too, has its share of woes lately. The serious lack of rain (most likely made worse by the aforementioned climate change) is destroying our farmers’ livelihood at an even more alarming rate than usual, many areas in the province have been declared disaster zones (which sounds impressive but really doesn’t get us any help from the government) and people can’t go anywhere these days without getting shot, stabbed or thrown under a bus, it seems.

But hey, forget all of that. Those problems are minor compared to what Albertans really should be worried about- that free parking is sucking up all of our money, ruining our property value and killing our planet. At least, that should be our biggest concern, according to a recent opinion piece in the Edmonton Journal. The opinion piece, titled “Ending ‘free’ parking should be our cities’ most urgent priority,” by Stuart Donavan and David Seymour claims that free parking really isn’t free because of the hidden costs to Canadians to build and maintain parking spaces. Yeah, so? Our “free” health care system isn’t actually free either. Thanks for the newsflash, geniuses.

It’s one thing to say that cities in Alberta should consider changing their parking system to a deregulated parking system but to say that “wiping parking regulations from municipal planning codes across Canada is arguably the most urgent policy reform Canada’s municipalities can make”? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard since that rumour that Michael Jackson is secretly still alive and in hiding.

I agree that cutting down on the amount of free parking available in cities would slightly reduce the amount of people who drive, thereby reducing carbon emissions. The positive effect on the environment is the only decent reason Donavan and Seymour put forth as incentive for getting rid of free parking in cities. And that still isn’t enough of a reason to make it Alberta’s “most urgent priority” at this moment. Hello, have you not noticed all the other shit that is going on at the moment? Our lakes are drying up, crops aren’t growing, people are losing their jobs left and right and one in 10 kids in Alberta live in poverty. Maybe we should focus on solving some of those problems before we tackle the whole ‘free parking is the worst problem ever’ thing.

Normally, I would be in favour of anything that helps our planet and maybe even reduces some of the ridiculous amount of traffic in Edmonton that occurs every year during construction season. But I fail to see how a deregulated parking supply will ensure “that Canada’s urban areas are able to tackle current economic and environmental challenges,” like Donavan and Seymour think it will. Will charging people four dollars every time they drive to the grocery store really solve any of Alberta’s current problems?

Donavan and Seymour argue that when free parking is available, with the cost of the parking built into the cost of other goods, people don’t carpool or take public transit because they don’t have any incentive to do so. However, people still have plenty of incentives to carpool. People that carpool to work or elsewhere do it because it’s convenient, saves money on gas and is good for the planet. People who don’t carpool are not against driving to work with their buddies and co-workers because they are so damn eager to use free parking that they must drive their own car to work every single day.

Free parking is not our province’s biggest problem right now. Saying that ending ‘free’ parking should be our province’s number one concern right now is ludicrous when so much else is going on in our province and our country. Our government has more important and pressing issues to deal with at the moment.