Quote:
Originally Posted by vid
Thunder Bay did a parking study a couple years ago and found that, at best, 40% of the parking spots in the downtown areas were actually used. And Thunder Bay's downtowns have a lot less parking as a percentage of space than downtown Winnipeg. It's starting to change as downtown gets more developed, but we're still probably not more than 60%. Major events fill spaces up quickly, but they mostly happen outside of office hours, so almost all of the parking spaces are available.
The main issue is that people expect to be able to park within sight of their destination. This is why people will park far away from the front door at Walmart, but are often hesitant to park around the corner or a block over from the store they're going to, even if it's a shorter walk.
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Honestly, there is a definite parking crunch during the weekday, daytime already within three blocks of Portage and Main. On street parking is difficult and even bordering on impossible to obtain while most private lots have some slack but a slight tweak will push them to capacity, ie a lot closing part of a floor for maintenance.
There are similar issues already in the Convention Center area and things have only gotten worse with the arrival of Hydro two blocks north. Losing the SoPo spaces during construction will put on an even further crunch.
As for saying alternatives like rapid transit or even normal transit are viable, that is just not true. Sadly, small changes to our transit system, like extended a route into a new residential area, can take five or more years. For more proof look at the issue with getting a single rapid transit run completed from downtown to the U of M.
Downtown is already losing offices to the suburbs due to the lack of available and cheap parking and unless the city puts stops in place to encourage offices to be downtown this will start to be a new trend.