Banff Parking Proposal

The Town of Banff is restarting the consultation of this project with Phase 2.

Please review the Phase 1 What We Heard Report and the new Revised Draft Parking Plan - Phase 2

Provide your input in the 2020 survey below, or ask a question in the Q&A tab

Parking challenges, traffic congestion, the cost to local property taxpayers, and the environmental impact associated with the millions of visitors who come to Banff by car every year continues to affect us all.

As a town limited to 4-square-kilometres in size, Banff will see parking and traffic issues increase. This proposal helps protect parking spaces for residents, while providing greater access to available parking spaces for everyone.

The proposed plan has 3 elements to the strategy:

• residential permit parking on downtown residential streets
• visitor-pay parking downtown
• free, longer-stay parking in the periphery of downtown and in the Bear Street parkade

Revised Draft Parking Plan – Phase 2

A. Visitor-pay parking in the downtown core

Following feedback from residents in Phase 1, pay parking in downtown Banff is now being proposed for visitors and commuters, with free parking for residents for parking three hours in the downtown pay zone. Residents would only pay if parking longer than 3 hours of parking in the zone. Pay parking applied to visitors would still increase the availability of spaces for short-term stays. Visitors can choose to park for free in designated lots on the periphery and upper levels of the Bear Street Parkade. Charging for parking in the core would displace longer-term parking to free spaces, encourage turnover of spaces and reduce some of the congestion caused by drivers circling the streets looking for spots. Free parking zones are included in the proposed Parking Management Plan with the intention of directing long-term parkers out of the downtown area to the periphery of town. For more details on the Visitor-Pay Parking System, review the Revised Draft Parking Plan – Phase 2 document.

B. Resident Parking Permit system

The Resident Parking Permit system is designed to protect parking spaces in the general area of residents’ homes downtown and in areas adjacent to downtown (within approximately 2 blocks) that might otherwise receive “spill over” from visitors or out-of-town commuters not wanting to pay to park downtown.

The main revision is residents would not pay any fee for the resident parking permits. The revised proposal would allow unlimited resident parking permits per dwelling for the designated downtown residential streets. Visitors and non-residents would not be allowed on the designated resident-permit streets. Guest permits would be available for residents to welcome visiting friends and family.

For more details on the Resident Parking Permit System, review the Revised Draft Parking Plan – Phase 2 document.

C. Proposed parking zones

The user-pay parking zone in the revised proposal remains virtually the same as originally proposed, with minor changes to reflect existing time limits outside the downtown core. User-pay parking is proposed to apply to visitors and commuters, with residents having three hours free. No changes are proposed to area of the Resident Parking Permit zone.