After Nicole Boisjoli finishes school for the day at Bow Valley College, she takes the train back to her car parked at the Franklin LRT Station.
Since the implementation of the park-and-ride fee, Boisjoli has started parking for free at a nearby church.
“It is ridiculous that the city charges you to park and take the train when they are trying to encourage you to be eco-friendly and transit ridership,” said Boisjoli.
Boisjoli said she sees fewer riders on the train and fewer cars in the parking lot.
“Usually when I come after school this whole lot is full,” Boisjoli said, looking onto a half-filled parking lot.
On Monday, a motion at city council by Ald. Jim Stevenson and Ald. Joe Connolly will attempt to reduce the park-and-ride fee from $3 to $1
“We have all kinds of people telling us that there are all kinds of spots available at these lots,” said Stevenson.
Stevenson said that the $3 parking fee was implemented when the economy was better.
Ron Collins, communications co-ordinator for Calgary Transit, would not comment on the proposed motion. Collins said that at first people were driving to free lots, but he said that was changing now, despite what others are saying.
“Now that the program has expanded and is virtually in all of the lots, there’s been more of an acceptance and we are starting to see them filling up to a larger degree.”
Collins said that ridership on Calgary Transit is up in the first four months of 2009.
From January to April 2009, Calgary Transit saw 31,894,100 riders up from 30,881,500 from the same time in 2008.
