Quality of Canadian urbanism

[ssiguy]

While most Canadian downtowns/inner cities are quite vibrant and appealing, the reality is that most Canadians live in the suburbs. Whether that being due to not being able to afford to live in the inner cities, being closer to work as most do NOT work right downtown, or having the complete audacity of actually wanting a back yard or a bedroom for each kid, there are several factors at play.

Also most people have a car and that will never change regardless of how good the transit is. Having a car is expensive but it is a convenience that allows far more freedom than transit every could and hence it is an expense they are willing to pay.

The question is not how we get people to ditch their cars because it's never going to happen but rather how we can work with our cars and still make vibrant communities. One very easy and cheap way we can do this is reconfiguring parking.

Much of our urban blight and pedestrian unfriendly suburbs is that stores are fronted by massive parking lots taking the store fronts far off the roadways and sidewalks. We don't have to force less parking but rather reconfigure where we put it. Putting all store fronts at the sidewalks and putting the parking in the rear would go miles to bringing vitality to our streets. We have recently seen the development of such communities with streets offering a more pleasant pedestrian realm being created in our suburbs but the reality is that they don't have any less parking than what we are use to but rather the parking is behind the stores and not in front of them.

Getting rid of parking minimums in our suburbs may look great for urban policy wonks but it is key to a businesses success because they know the the VAST majority of people going to their business are going to drive. This is why businesses fight back against such proposals..........getting rid of parking spots is a one way ticket to insolvency and they know it.