BANFF – Controlling private vehicle access in the busy Banff townsite to deal with congestion and exploding visitation won’t be happening any time soon, but the draft community plan allows the national park community to go down that road in future.
Coun. Hugh Pettigrew was unsuccessful in his attempt to include high-level policy direction in the Banff Community Plan to explore and potentially implement a parking reservation system or permitting during peak periods in the shorter term.
He also wanted to see the municipality implement traffic restrictions and enforcement tools to prevent vehicles volumes exceeding the known road capacity, which at more than 24,000 vehicles per day leads to congestion.
“This is the opportunity for us to set direction so that we can actually manage this properly,” he said during the July 28 council meeting, getting support only from Coun. Ted Christensen.
“It’s becoming necessary that we manage and restrict vehicle volumes to remain within the town’s established capacity threshold, which at this time is 24,000 vehicles, but we’re somehow managing 27,000 to 30,000 with some congestion at peak times.”
The Town of Banff has no authority to restrict vehicles from entering the townsite from the Trans-Canada Highway entrances. Only Parks Canada or emergency services can do that when congestion could impact emergency access, as is done in Lake Louise or Lake Minnewanka a couple of times each summer.
However, the draft community plan calls for actively promoting transportation demand management measures, as well as to embrace "intelligent transportation systems" to manage and control traffic flows effectively.
Administrative officials said those clauses in the community plan would allow for vehicle access controls, such as a parking reservation system for example, to be explored in the future should council want to go that route.
“The devil would be in the details for sure,” said Adrian Field, director of engineering for the Town of Banff.
“Our understanding is we do have the legal authority to put in a parking reservation system, but we would want to check that again, if council did want to explore that further.”
Coun. Barb Pelham voiced opposition to Pettigrew’s motion, believing it to be too tactical in nature when the community plan is meant to be an aspirational document to guide Banff for the next 10 to 15 years.
However, she was pleased the community plan does not rule out a parking reservation system in future.
“Terrific,” Pelham said, upon hearing administration’s discussion.
“I wanted to make sure the Banff Community Plan as presented does not forbid that kind of system in the future, 10 years down the road.”
Other members of council believe this kind of idea can also be explored as part of the human use management strategy and framework to be developed for the townsite, rather than outlined as a specific tactic in the community plan.
Coun. Grant Canning is a PhD candidate at the University of Manitoba looking at visitor use management strategies that have been implemented within national parks and gateway communities, some of which have implemented parking reservation systems.
He said following conversations and research around the idea of human use management he has learned to never start the process with tactics in mind, but first to get public input and try to build consensus on what residents want Banff to look like into the future.
“Once you have that, then you address the very specific tactical measures to help accomplish that,” he said.
“These types of access controls might very well be the tactics at the end of the process, they might very well be the recommendations, but to start the process with the tactics or the end things in mind without even starting the formalized process, I just think it’s doing it backwards.”
During the July 14 public hearing on the community plan, residents spoke to a need for a parking reservation system as a first step in human use management for the townsite.
Leslie Taylor, a long-time resident, Banff’s first mayor, two-term councillor and former park superintendent, said she believes a parking reservation system through licence plates is entirely feasible, noting public parking spaces could be reserved over the course of a day.
“I am definitely not talking about people booking individual parking stalls. I am talking about booking the right to park on public property within the town of Banff … your system is already so close to set up to do this that I think it’s entirely possible to do,” she said.
“If, I, as a Calgarian went online to do that and found out that today’s public parking capacity was already full, I think that would send a fairly strong message about the town is already full today and we look forward to you coming another day,” she added.
“That way you’re not charging people for the right to come, you’re not sorting people economically, you’re just sorting people by their willingness to plan ahead, book ahead and make themselves one of the 12,000 vehicles that are allowed to be able to park on public spaces on that day.”
In other ways to try to deal with Banff’s traffic and congestion woes, the Banff Community Plan calls for exploring multimodal transportation arrival hubs, decentralized mobility hubs and/or parking.
The draft plan also commits the Town to working with partners in continuing to advocate for a passenger rail train and expanded bus service linking the Calgary area with Bow Valley destinations, including Canmore, Banff and Lake Louise.
Banff Mayor Corrie DiManno, along with Canmore Mayor Sean Krausert, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek and Cochrane Mayor Jeff Genung, are lobbying the provincial and federal governments to move ahead with conventional passenger rail from Calgary to Banff.
In a July 22 letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the mayors urged both governments to recognize this "shovel-ready" project as a “project of national interest” under the Building Canada Act.
“This project holds national, provincial, and local significance and presents an opportunity to deliver sustainable growth, tourism expansion, climate leadership, and reconciliation through transportation,” the four mayors wrote.
Alberta’s passenger rail master plan, which is assessing the feasibility of passenger rail in the province, including regional, commuter and high-speed services, is expected to be completed by the end this summer and reviewed by the government in the fall.
In a recently released evaluation of 30-year and 60-year plans, the return of passenger rail between Banff and Calgary rated high. Both conventional and high speed rail were evaluated.
“Within that 30-year plan, the three communities that are identified as having the most potential are Calgary-Edmonton and Calgary-Banff,” said Darren Enns, director of planning and environment for the Town of Banff.
However, Enns said mass transit from Calgary to Banff needs to be supported with disincentives to driving private vehicles.
“Without disincentives, passenger rail or mass transit has the potential to be additive, so it needs to be done in conjunction with other strategies,” he said.
“It needs to replace vehicles within our community with mass transit, not simply add visitors throughout.”
Year-to-date 2025 vehicle volume, up to July 31, is 6.2 per cent higher than the same period in 2024, for a total of 3.98 million. That's 5.2 per cent more than 2019, and 4.4 per cent more than 2017.
