Downtown Parking

[kaiserLDN]

I think we need a thread about parking downtown so I will start one here.

Should Farhi be forced to sell his parking lots?

Should Farhi build a parking garage with all his money?

Why should the downtown merchants complain about lost parking when they could be building towers around them that could feed them costumers such as in bigger cities?

[K85]

1 - Yes. He is a leech who promises things, doesn't deliver, then complains when things don't benefit him.
2 - No. The city should, and the city should receive the revenue from it, and put that money into things benefiting the population (BRT (maybe then to LRT), busing, water, garbage, camps for kids, etc)
3 - Because nimby. They only see the short term impact, not long term gain. I think it was Kitchener recently, that when installing their LRT, people lost their fucking minds (merchants). Of all the construction they had, only 2 closed, and I believe those were as per the normal course of that area year over year.

[haljackey]

I read a great article not long ago from the Toronto Star about parking structures. You might be interested:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/08...rking-garages-out-of-sight-micallef.html

London's urban intensification is coming in the 21st century and we can really benefit with lessons learned by other cities in the 20th century.

We need to focus on more underground parking and better transit vs garages and surface lots. The BRT and bike lanes downtown mean more street parking will be eaten up and we should think about replacing a good portion of those lost space in underground lots in new developments.

I dunno why but I've always wanted to have a large, multi-story underground parking facility below Victoria Park. Entrances to the facility would be at each corner of the park + near the Band-shell. Access would be where Clarence ends near Richmond & Centennial / City Hall. The park would need to be closed for a year or so to facilitate this construction but it would go a long way to boost capacity.

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by haljackey

I read a great article not long ago from the Toronto Star about parking structures. You might be interested:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/08...rking-garages-out-of-sight-micallef.html

London's urban intensification is coming in the 21st century and we can really benefit with lessons learned by other cities in the 20th century.

We need to focus on more underground parking and better transit vs garages and surface lots. The BRT and bike lanes downtown mean more street parking will be eaten up and we should think about replacing a good portion of those lost space in underground lots in new developments.

I dunno why but I've always wanted to have a large, multi-story underground parking facility below Victoria Park. Entrances to the facility would be at each corner of the park + near the Band-shell. Access would be where Clarence ends near Richmond & Centennial / City Hall. The park would need to be closed for a year or so to facilitate this construction but it would go a long way to boost capacity.

That's a great article thanks for posting it.

Not sure if that would be feasibly about Vic Park but that would be amazing to have a couple levels of parking there wow!

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by MrSlippery519

That's a great article thanks for posting it.

Not sure if that would be feasibly about Vic Park but that would be amazing to have a couple levels of parking there wow!

yes, great article and much to be learned. Canadian cities would be wise to avoid the fate of all but a few coastal American cities, with the rest having many streets looking like this:

star

[Djeffery]

The football stadium in Hamilton (Macmaster, not Tim Hortons Field), is the roof of an underground parking garage. The issue with doing something like that at Vic Park might be the trees lol. If we can do without the trees, then bring it on. And they can stick the homeless people down there at night lol

[jammer139]

Here's a thought.

Surface parking lots should have their property tax discount eliminated immediately. Apparently that has been the case for a while now and only recently has the city addressed this stupid policy.

Then they should have an ever increasing surtax levy added on top of the property tax. 1% first year 2% second year and so on. Or annual zoning renewal fee that increases each year that the lot stays undeveloped.

At some point the empty surface lot is no longer profitable an you either develop it or sell it to someone who will.

[MrSlippery519]

The property tax discount is/was silly anyways, certainly does not promote developing when you basically just buy the lot and profit with little to no maintenance.

[MolsonExport]

lfp

owns way too much of downtown and environs. A monopoly is usually not a goodt thing.

[Djeffery]

Council has approved the renewal of the permits for all 3 of Farhi's lots up for discussion.

[MolsonExport]

Lots of Farhi. Or a lot of Fahri. Same difference.

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by kaiserLDN

I think we need a thread about parking downtown so I will start one here.

Should Farhi be forced to sell his parking lots?

Should Farhi build a parking garage with all his money?

Why should the downtown merchants complain about lost parking when they could be building towers around them that could feed them costumers such as in bigger cities?

I've got a better idea. Force Impark to sell all of its downtown lots back to the city. The city can then create parking lots where people can actually afford to park. Those pirates at Impark are gouging Londoners because they know they can get away with it; the city profits because each one of the Impark lots generates property taxes, so it won't bring Impark to heel.

After the lots revert back to city ownership, the city can then sell the lots to developers to build on with the proviso that they must build in above-ground or underground parking lots and charge affordable rates.

A city London's size should not be adopting Toronto-style, laissez-faire parking policies that benefit only the rich and the parking lot owners and drive everyone else out of the core. I'm lucky that I found a cheap lot to park in through some connections, but non-city-operated parking in the core is getting stupidly expensive.

This is a big reason why a lot of London businesses left the downtown core in the first place - parking was getting too scarce and expensive. And why pay to park so you can shop downtown when you can just go to a mall or somewhere else in town and get free parking??

I would bet anyone dollars to donuts that former mayor Fontana had something to do with Impark's invasion of the downtown core - with appropriately greased palms along the way.

The city is dreaming, in Technicolor, if it thinks that someday it can build a public transit system that will make it easy, convenient and cheap for Londoners who work downtown to give up their cars. While I support BRT, the kind of public transit system that is needed to get people out of their cars is a long, long way off. Such a system will have to beat cars in terms of comfort, quality, speed and convenience first. Until that day, allowing parking to get scarcer and more expensive is just going to piss people off, royally.

I live near Wharncliffe and Base Line Road, and on a good day when traffic isn't too bad, it takes me between five and seven minutes to get to the lot downtown where I park. On the way home, it takes somewhat longer due to rush hour traffic and gridlock on Wharncliffe.

If I took a bus to work, it would take me much longer to get to work and get home because the bus is slower and will force me to be at work 15 minutes earlier than I need to, and force me to wait 15 minutes after work just to be able to catch a bus that will get me home.

Because I have a car, I don't have to adjust my schedule to fit someone else's dictates, I simply hop in the car and go. And I don't have to put up with the discomfort of standing around in inclement weather conditions waiting for a bus that may or may not get to my stop on time.

[tyeman200]

Originally Posted by Stevo26

I've got a better idea. Force Impark to sell all of its downtown lots back to the city. The city can then create parking lots where people can actually afford to park. Those pirates at Impark are gouging Londoners because they know they can get away with it; the city profits because each one of the Impark lots generates property taxes, so it won't bring Impark to heel.

After the lots revert back to city ownership, the city can then sell the lots to developers to build on with the proviso that they must build in above-ground or underground parking lots and charge affordable rates.

A city London's size should not be adopting Toronto-style, laissez-faire parking policies that benefit only the rich and the parking lot owners and drive everyone else out of the core. I'm lucky that I found a cheap lot to park in through some connections, but non-city-operated parking in the core is getting stupidly expensive.

This is a big reason why a lot of London businesses left the downtown core in the first place - parking was getting too scarce and expensive. And why pay to park so you can shop downtown when you can just go to a mall or somewhere else in town and get free parking??

I would bet anyone dollars to donuts that former mayor Fontana had something to do with Impark's invasion of the downtown core - with appropriately greased palms along the way.

The city is dreaming, in Technicolor, if it thinks that someday it can build a public transit system that will make it easy, convenient and cheap for Londoners who work downtown to give up their cars. While I support BRT, the kind of public transit system that is needed to get people out of their cars is a long, long way off. Such a system will have to beat cars in terms of comfort, quality, speed and convenience first. Until that day, allowing parking to get scarcer and more expensive is just going to piss people off, royally.

I live near Wharncliffe and Base Line Road, and on a good day when traffic isn't too bad, it takes me between five and seven minutes to get to the lot downtown where I park. On the way home, it takes somewhat longer due to rush hour traffic and gridlock on Wharncliffe.

If I took a bus to work, it would take me much longer to get to work and get home because the bus is slower and will force me to be at work 15 minutes earlier than I need to, and force me to wait 15 minutes after work just to be able to catch a bus that will get me home.

Because I have a car, I don't have to adjust my schedule to fit someone else's dictates, I simply hop in the car and go. And I don't have to put up with the discomfort of standing around in inclement weather conditions waiting for a bus that may or may not get to my stop on time.

I never pay when I park in an Impark lot, cause if I get a ticket I'm just going to throw it away. Those bastards will never get a cent from me.

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Council has approved the renewal of the permits for all 3 of Farhi's lots up for discussion.

Not surprising, really do not understand the logic in that, and to grant it for three more years?? Why not make it one year and reassess at a better time?

Our counsel members are a bunch of pushovers.

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by tyeman200

I never pay when I park in an Impark lot, cause if I get a ticket I'm just going to throw it away. Those bastards will never get a cent from me.

I got one of their tickets once. Never paid it and they never bothered me about it. Legally, the tickets are unenforceable as the presence of your vehicle on one of their lots does not constitute a binding contract. It can't anyway, because you don't know what the terms and conditions of the contract are until you drive onto one of their lots, stop and get out of your car to read their signs. And that's IF you read the signs.

[ssiguy]

You know that your downtown is coming alive and beginning to create a critical mass when parking becomes scarce. Most cities would love to have this kind of dilemma. It's proves that London's downtown gaps are being filled and people want to come to the downtown core after hours and are willing to pay to do it.

That said, obviously London will never create a transit system which is intense enough to entice everyone going downtown to ditch their cars but there are options. Parking garages need not be ugly or even pedestrian unfriendly. Quite the contrary many parking lots can enhance the pedestrian realm and provide needed parking places at the same time. It all comes down to the design and the street frontage. Many cities have created parking garages that are truly striking pieces of architecture and have enhanced the downtown experience. Many cities have rehabilitated old historic structures into parking garages restoring the old historic streetscape and tucking the parking garage behind it.

One only has to look at London's history to see this. The old Covenent Garden Market was actually just the bottom floor of an ugly King Street parking garage but it was still a go-to destination and was always packed with shoppers.

A parking garage is much like an office building. If it is treated as nothing more than a place to put people {or park cars} and the frontage is just a wall of glass or brick then it can be a blight. If however the street level has shops & restaurants, an inviting pedestrian entry, and a pleasant frontage and streetscape then it can be a real asset to the downtown improving both the pedestrian experience and increasing accessibility to it.

[kaiserLDN]

I think a good above ground public parking lot that blends in with things is the parking garage between the 2 renaissance towers. Its not an eye sore and blends in with the building. They have some glass on the outside and one storefront at the bottom of the actual garage.

[Oliverfox]

Originally Posted by kaiserLDN

I think a good above ground public parking lot that blends in with things is the parking garage between the 2 renaissance towers. Its not an eye sore and blends in with the building. They have some glass on the outside and one storefront at the bottom of the actual garage.

The first four floors of the renaissance are the ugliest part of that project, a bland concrete base with fake windows that do nothing to add depth or life to the building. A better example would be the Azure, the mix of materials, colour with fake windows that light up make it more interesting and lively.

[kaiserLDN]

Originally Posted by Oliverfox

The first four floors of the renaissance are the ugliest part of that project, a bland concrete base with fake windows that do nothing to add depth or life to the building. A better example would be the Azure, the mix of materials, colour with fake windows that light up make it more interesting and lively.

Azure does not have a public garage and is more recent. Renaissance has uglier garage but cant compare the 2 projects. Better looking then a regular garage.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by kaiserLDN

Azure does not have a public garage and is more recent. Renaissance has uglier garage but cant compare the 2 projects. Better looking then a regular garage.

It's also hard to compare a 2 tower complex with a single tower. Better comparison would be City Place at Waterloo and Dundas. The Ren is certainly a better looking parking garage than, say, CitiPlaza, or what the old Market was.