Parking in Waterloo Region

[tomh009]

There's not even a mandatory driver training course; any training course is optional for drivers.

I could have sworn I had to pass a test to get my driver's licence.

The real effect of ideas like mandatory training, insurance or helmet laws is discourage casual use of cycles.

The real effect of ideas like mandatory licensing, insurance or seatbelt laws is discourage casual use of cars.

[MidTowner]

Yes, there are possible benefits, but like most things man kind does, if you get an inch, you take a mile, and people feel an "entitlement" to that asphalt in front of their house.  I can't agree that we should be "encouraging more of it", as in some neighbourhoods its already out of control.  [Fine example is the Activa Ave area.  There is an S bend street there that had legal parking on both sides.  The city allowed the developer to have single car driveways, so every house had 1-2 cars on the street.  If I drove a car down this street and faced an oncoming car, one of us would be pulling into a driveway to let the other pass.  Now lets think about a fire truck/ambulance on this same street and you know where I'm coming from.  It's a drastic example of failure on the developer and the city's planning dept.]

There are well-documented benefits to on-street parking. I hear a lot of anecdotal musings about cars parked on-street possibly slowing down emergency vehicles, but haven't seen any solid research about how it does. "Emergency vehicle access" is the same reason a lot of people advocate for super-wide roads that invariably lead to dangerous speeding. The fact is, on a narrow street in a dense neighbourhood with street parking, one car has to pull to the side and let the other pass, which is a positive in terms of liveability and safety of that street. In the case of emergency vehicles, they have sirens for a reason.

I don't know that specific street near Activa Ave, but I would consider it a planning success. The alternative to that situation would be double-wide driveways, meaning wider lots, meaning less density and all the costs that go with low density. And, of course, less efficient pivate parking rather than efficient public parking.

If that street or any other has no parking available because of high demand, there is a very simple answer to that: price the parking such that the demand curve moves, and more parking becomes available to those willing to pay a more market-based price for it. That's a much better solution than reducing supply of it and requiring more land to be given over to private parking used a fraction of the time.

[ookpik]

[Fine example is the Activa Ave area.  There is an S bend street there that had legal parking on both sides.  The city allowed the developer to have single car driveways, so every house had 1-2 cars on the street.  If I drove a car down this street and faced an oncoming car, one of us would be pulling into a driveway to let the other pass.  Now lets think about a fire truck/ambulance on this same street and you know where I'm coming from.  It's a drastic example of failure on the developer and the city's planning dept.]

This is a specious argument against the idea of street parking. It is however a strong argument against street parking on both sides of the street and/or street parking on road segments like curves where it's not feasible.

There's an easy way to address the situation you describe, e.g. allow street parking only on one side of the street and prohibit it altogether on curves.

Incidentally this raises another reason why street parking, especially on both sides, should be curtailed in the winter on narrower residential streets. These streets typically aren't plowed or aren't plowed until days after a snow storm. As a result snow on either side of the street accumulates and narrows the effective width of the street. Add two cars parked across from each other and it's no wonder that wider vehicles, e.g. ambulances and fire trucks, can't navigate the street.

[zanate]

They were saying something on 570 news a few days ago about the region looking into building more parking structures (like the Benton garage) and how to pay for them.  It would be so cool if we could get automated parking garages (even more so if they could be installed underground).  They have lots of them in Japan and they're gaining traction in Europe as well.

I think it's Waterloo that's looking into this in uptown. Underground is a challenge due to the water table, I think.

Any idea why automated garages aren't found much in Canada yet? Is it a cultural or a technical / price issue?

Are we talking automated garages that store and retrieve your vehicle for you?

I would expect those to be significantly more costly in both construction and operation (lots of intricate moving parts don't just keep working on their own) than a plain concrete parking structure people drive in and out of. So until the value of the space taken up by the parking structure becomes so high that condensing it and/or pushing it underground outweighs that cost, or the cost of setting up one of these garages drops lower, I doubt we'll see very many of them here in Canada.

[BuildingScout]

I think it's Waterloo that's looking into this in uptown. Underground is a challenge due to the water table, I think.

The Barrel Yards has two level of underground parking, does it not?

[clasher]

There's not even a mandatory driver training course; any training course is optional for drivers.

I could have sworn I had to pass a test to get my driver's licence.

The real effect of ideas like mandatory training, insurance or helmet laws is discourage casual use of cycles.

The real effect of ideas like mandatory licensing, insurance or seatbelt laws is discourage casual use of cars.

Passing a test isn't the same thing as an actual training course. A lot of people that ride bikes probably have or had drivers licences and most of the same laws apply to them so it would be redundant to have another test. E-bikes should require a valid driver's licence in my opinion.

The real effect of training people to operated heavy equipment is that they aren't killing as many people as they might if training was completely optional. Most people scofflaw cyclists aren't maiming and killing other road users at rates anywhere comparable to drivers. Over 2000 people a year are still dying from automobile collisions in this country despite strict licensing and insurance. Most cyclists are killed by these trained and insured drivers too, so I don't see how training cyclists is going to protect them from inattentive or drunk drivers.

But this really doesn't have anything to do with street parking so I'm not gonna reply in this thread about it.

[Coke6pk]

Sorry, no access to image hosting at work.    

For clarification, the street is Hackberry St.  Would be nice to see a Google Street View in the winter when the snow piles shorten the road, yet cars park down both sides.

Allowing this subdivision with only one car driveways was a mistake, and the city has been dealing with the headache ever since. 

[Canard]

Just like anything, nobody wants to be the first. I bet if a manufacturer offered to install and maintain it for a period of time, and the Region only "rented" it, they'd go for it.

[MidTowner]

From the CBC: Ontario freezes hospital parking rates, offers long-term discount

Health Minister Eric Hoskins says 3-year freeze takes effect now, discounts to begin Oct. 1

"...Effective immediately, parking rates at all hospitals in Ontario are frozen for next three years, and after that, price increases can be no more than the rate of inflation. Hoskins said
 
Starting Oct. 1, all hospitals with a parking rate of more than $10 per day must offer five-day, 10-day and 30-day passes at a 50 per cent discount off the daily rate, with full in-and-out privileges..."

This is really the worst kind of political pandering. The picture of the news conference actually has a poster proclaiming "50 PERCENT OFF." I've read that at some hospitals parking fees have been identified as a barrier, but to impose a freeze at every hospital, regardless of situation, is nutty. Will this apply to new spots? Or maybe hospitals just won't bother with those? Any consideration given to access to hospitals by transit or other means of transportation? (Answer: no.)

Lowest common denominator politics at its worst.

[Canard]

How is this bad?

In my mind, hospital parking should be free. The last thing someone wants to think about when their loved one is dying is if they have the right change for the parking gate.

[MidTowner]

How is this bad?

In my mind, hospital parking should be free. The last thing someone wants to think about when their loved one is dying is if they have the right change for the parking gate.

I don't think it's possible for it to be free; somebody will have to pay for it.

What proportion of cars parking in hospital lots are driven by people whose loved ones are dying? This applies to everyone who goes to hospitals (by car, anyway).

[Viewfromthe42]

How is this bad?

In my mind, hospital parking should be free. The last thing someone wants to think about when their loved one is dying is if they have the right change for the parking gate.

Sunlife already works incredibly hard to keep everyone in a car, and the shuttle lots they have would not be able to compete with "park for free at the hospital."

If we recognize that Conestoga and Fairview will see some people use mall parking as ION/GRT park'n'ride, it's foolish to think that were hospital parking free, it would not be abused.

It's also a source of income for the hospital, which encourages them to maximize their extra revenue. Were we to detach the local motivation from parking decisions, by making it free or centrally determined, we'd likely see either too little parking or too much.

[BuildingScout]

This is really the worst kind of political pandering. The picture of the news conference actually has a poster proclaiming "50 PERCENT OFF." I've read that at some hospitals parking fees have been identified as a barrier, but to impose a freeze at every hospital, regardless of situation, is nutty. Will this apply to new spots? Or maybe hospitals just won't bother with those? Any consideration given to access to hospitals by transit or other means of transportation? (Answer: no.)

Lowest common denominator politics at its worst.

You should watch the marketplace news clip for the reasons why this cap is in place. There are some hospitals that seem to take advantage of sick families to maximize their income, including sadly SickKids in Toronto.

[MidTowner]

You should watch the marketplace news clip for the reasons why this cap is in place. There are some hospitals that seem to take advantage of sick families to maximize their income, including sadly SickKids in Toronto.

I don't see why some hospitals' practices should lead to a restriction on all hospitals; the hospitals who might have been trying to keep parking fees under control will now be penalized by having their rates frozen. I can see the sense of offering passes for people who want to visit often, but arbitrarily freezing all hospital parking rates at the level they happen to be at today doesn't seem very logical.

In any case, we know what happens when parking is priced too low: it gets oversubscribed, and is less available. At some of these urban hospitals with the highest rates, if they're artificially held to a lower level, the lots will fill up and you'll wind up with a Marketplace episode about how those terrible hospitals are failing to build new parking and people have to walk through the snow because they can only find spots blocks away.

[BuildingScout]

In any case, we know what happens when parking is priced too low:

I don't think we are in any danger of this judging from the figures quoted in the news clip.