The major parkade facility immediately adjacent to Vancouver International Airport’s (YVR) terminal building and SkyTrain’s YVR Airport Station will see substantial changes in its rates, providing limited-time free parking while significantly increasing rates for longer uses — all as a measure to reduce traffic congestion.
Starting on November 13, 2024, the new parkade rates will be set as free for the first 30 minutes, with each additional 30 minutes or a portion of a 30-minute period costing $14. This rate reaches a daily ceiling of $65.
This is up from the existing rates of $5.50 per 30 minutes and $11 per hour, with daily rates set at $40.
As well, the new Gateway valet rates will be $28 per hour, plus a one-time $20 valet fee. The Gateway valet rate will have a daily maximum of $65, plus the one-time valet fee.
In steep contrast, currently, there are no hourly rate options for the Gateway valet service, but there is a $50 per day fee plus a one-time $20 valet fee.
According to the Vancouver Airport Authority, the changes to the rates are intended to reduce traffic congestion on Sea Island’s major roadways in and out of the airport, with recent increased congestion now “impacting our guest experience.”
The new ability to use the parkade as a pick-up and drop-off zone — through the introduction of a new free parking period for the first 30 minutes — is intended to encourage more travellers to be picked up and dropped off away from the terminal building’s limited curbside spaces.
For the time being, rates for YVR’s jetSet parking lot (located just east of the terminal building) and Value Long Term parking lot (next to SkyTrain’s Templeton Station) will remain the same.
The recent rise in traffic congestion also correlates with YVR’s surging passenger volumes. In 2023, YVR recorded 24.9 million passengers — the third best-performing year ever for Canada’s second-busiest airport. With 19.96 million passengers already recorded over the first nine months of 2024, YVR is on track to exceed last year’s volumes and potentially come very near or even exceed the all-time record of 26.38 million passengers in 2019.
Over the medium term, there could be even more vehicle parking capacity next to the terminal building — from the eventual completion of the unfinished major new additional parkade, which saw its construction pause in early 2020 amid the sudden onset of the pandemic. This structure was left in a partially built condition that was relatively close to completion.
The partially-built new parkade at Vancouver International Airport. (Google Maps)
The partially-built new parkade at Vancouver International Airport. (Google Maps)
Last week, during a Greater Vancouver Board of Trade event, Vancouver Airport Authority president and CEO Tamara Vrooman shared they are in the process of making a decision on the parkade’s strategy for completion and possible revised uses.
“We are looking at ways to think about the best and highest use for that parkade, [as] we are seeing less demand for parking overall. That doesn’t mean that people don’t want to park closer to the terminal, which is where that parkade is located,” said Vrooman, noting that the airport authority has now fully recovered from the pandemic and its finances are stronger than ever.
This past spring, Vrooman also noted that the use of ride-hailing services at YVR had gone up by 50% over the previous 18-month period. However, she emphasized that, at the time, the increase in ride-hailing use was not coming at the expense of public transit and taxi trips, which have been holding their market share.
During last week’s event, it was indicated that YVR’s public transit modal share for passengers is now hovering at 27%, which is overwhelmingly due to the existence of SkyTrain Canada Line. This figure is impressive for Canada and the United States, but it is below the public transit modal share for major airports such as Amsterdam (47%) and London Heathrow (39%).
According to TransLink statistics, YVR Airport Station recorded a total of 2.8 million boardings in 2023, with averages of 7,800 boardings per weekday, 7,200 per Saturday, and 7,600 per Sunday.