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Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
As Hali mentioned, you never have to walk through the parking lot if you are traveling on foot or by bike. Take a look at it on the Google maps link below and you will see the entrance to the store is directly linked to the sidewalk by a wide walkway. There is also a crosswalk located at about the mid-point of the building to get you to the residential areas.
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Anytime I've went there I've always been coming down Barrington, so i'd either have to take the long way to avoid the parking lot and gas station, or take the most direct route by going through it. which is what I do. And that's what i was getting at. Inconveniencing pedestrians for the sake of catering to automobiles. It isn't a matter of whether one has to walk thru the parking lot or be forced to walk an extended walk way, but rather having people diverted and forced to walk extra distance to get to an entrance that should have been built at the street, like on Quinpool.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
The other side of the store/parking lot only leads to the park or hotel/train station, so I don't see where that would be an issue for pedestrians. I've shopped there many times and have yet to see an empty parking lot, so therefore I believe they need to provide parking for their customers.
So while I agree that perhaps the store could be laid out better from an urban perspective, its current layout is not beautiful but is functional.
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Just because there's a need (or perhaps desire is a better term than need) to provide parking, it doesn't mean the parking has to be front and centre and be the focus of the development. And some would also argue that the concept of demand inducement applies here. If you invite people to do things a certain way, make it the most visible/obvious way and make it easy for them to do it, then chances are many will do it. From what i can tell, Pete's Frootique doesn't have any parking at all, but I'm 100% certain that if it did, the lot wouldn't sit empty either. So, that would be proof that it was needed?
Besides, things that are built in an auto centric manner are often to some degree functional; my criticism is of
how they function. If it didn't function at all then the store would go out of business and we'd have no need for discussion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
As an aside, thinking of an urban-layout grocery store, how would a 2+ storey grocery store work, with everybody pushing carts around? Seems like you would need an abundance of elevators to move people from level to level with their carts. I'm sure they exist but can't recall shopping in one, so I'm wondering how practical this type of layout could be.
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The shoppers on SGR is two levels as well and they also have the choice of baskets which seem most popular or carts and an elevator with cart capacity (and many people even in grocery stores use baskets nowdays). But I don't think the main shopping concourse would really need to be on more than one level. They could always put axillary functions upstairs, like the NSLC, healthfood section, washrooms, Joe Fresh, canteen/sitting area etc.