The Great Canadian Parking Lot Thread!

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Nice to see the MTL skyline fill up around the Molson Centre, but do they have a plan to replace parking for the arena? I get that we want to encourage people to take the Metro, but you can't expect everyone to take it. Or maybe the office buildings in the area can handle the parking needs?

The office building parking lots are private, so no. There are still a few parking lots in the area, but this should encourage people to use public transit, since the Bell Centre is located near Bonaventure and Lucien-L'Allier metro stations

The disappearance of these lots is a good thing, so we don't look like Houston:


http://beyonddc.com/log/wp-content/u...ownhouston.jpg

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

The office building parking lots are private, so no. There are still a few parking lots in the area, but this should encourage people to use public transit, since the Bell Centre is located near Bonaventure and Lucien-L'Allier metro stations

The disappearance of these lots is a good thing, so we don't look like Houston:


http://beyonddc.com/log/wp-content/u...ownhouston.jpg

Strange, in Ottawa, people can park in nearly any office building as long as they are willing to pay the price (14-20$ depending on time of day).

I totally agree that the development of parking lots is a good thing. It makes for a much more pleasant and liveable urban environment.

I guess I'm just so use to the vastness of Ottawa's Corel Centre parking;



http://hockey.ballparks.com/NHL/OttawaSenators/

Houston's just plain embarrassing! Although so is the Corel Centre...

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

The disappearance of these lots is a good thing, so we don't look like Houston:


http://beyonddc.com/log/wp-content/u...ownhouston.jpg

Worth mentioning that this picture is a few decades old.

[J.OT13]

Still pretty bad to this day;


http://www.neohouston.com/2009/03/pr...-productivity/



http://newurbanisminthenews.wordpres.../new-urbanism/

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Strange, in Ottawa, people can park in nearly any office building as long as they are willing to pay the price (14-20$ depending on time of day).

I totally agree that the development of parking lots is a good thing. It makes for a much more pleasant and liveable urban environment.

I guess I'm just so use to the vastness of Ottawa's Corel Centre parking;



http://hockey.ballparks.com/NHL/OttawaSenators/

Houston's just plain embarrassing! Although so is the Corel Centre...

I'd say Montreal will do fine even with less surface parking around the Bell Centre. There are plenty of cities around the world with facilities like that downtown and with very little parking around them.

[franktko]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

http://beyonddc.com/log/wp-content/u...ownhouston.jpg

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

Worth mentioning that this picture is a few decades old.

The same view from today. Better but still a lot of work to do! That 7-story parking garage (arrow) kills me - like there wasn't enough parking around, especially in that old picture!!

Notice the little high-rise behind the parking garage that's been demolished to make way for...

[Beedok]

I'd say Hamilton is still depressing for parking lots, just not quite that depressing.

[vanatox]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Strange, in Ottawa, people can park in nearly any office building as long as they are willing to pay the price (14-20$ depending on time of day).

In Montréal as well. I do that often.

Tour des Canadiens will have a parking podium so that will help.

[Calgarian]

Calgary is pretty bad for parking lots, but they are getting snapped up and developed pretty quick! the CPR corridor between the CBD and Beltline is the worst part and will probably take the longest to build out.

[SignalHillHiker]

I found most of the prairie cities really bad for parking lots. Calgary is obviously filling them in, which is great. Winnipeg is getting rid of a massive one by the convention centre as well.

I hate surface parking lots downtown - hate, hate, hate. It's a complete disruption of the urban experience.

This, for example, was the way I walked to get lunch just about every workday during my time on the prairies. Right downtown, but I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. Northern work camp, the worst of suburban St. John's, however you want to describe it. I hated every second, and it's ALL about the surface parking lots.



As ugly as our two downtown parking garages might be, at least they're not surface lots. We only have a couple of those. By contrast, here is a typical walk for lunch for me here in St. John's:



And people think I'm crazy for finding it more urban here.

Cities in Central Canada tend to do very well, like TO and MTL proper, and some smaller ones do especially well also, like Quebec City, for obvious reasons.

Keep filling'er in, b'ys. Getting rid of surface parking lots is probably the most impactful thing a city can do.

[middeljohn]

Even in the downtowns of Toronto's suburbs (Oakville, Mississauga, etc) it's hard to find a surface parking lot. ThatnHouston pic is disgusting. Calgary has a bigger, denser downtown and it's a fifth the population.

[matt602]

Well, Houston just made downtown Hamilton feel a lot more urban. Man, thats depressing. I realize the photo is old, but even the current one is pretty lame.

[J.OT13]

With all the talk of US malls turning their backs on transit, Houston's parking lots and comparison to Montréal, Hamilton and the west, I thought we might need a new thread!

Welcome to the Great "Canadian parking Lot Thread"! In this thread, I'm expecting mostly giant parking lots in downtown cores, but suburban parking lots and park and rides are also welcomed. Same goes for historic photographs of the vastness of mid-century parking areas in our citie's downtown cores.

I will of course start with my hometown, our nation's capital Ottawa;

1967 shot with Place de Ville phase I u/c (now contains the largest underground parking in Ottawa);

http://urbsite.blogspot.ca/2013/11/o...-building.html

Because of the height restrictions, Ottawa only has about 3 large surface parking lots left in the CBD as well as a few smaller ones as seen on this map;



Note that the three largest ones on the east side between Elgin and Metcalfe have already been redeveloped and a smaller one near Bank and Slater is currently being redeveloped.

And the Market;


Both pics, same source:
http://ottawaproject.wordpress.com/2...parking-space/

Of the 3 largest lots left in the CBD, two are on Lyon, near Place de Ville and the Lyon subway station. They are owned by our biggest condo developer Claridge (lot between Queen and Albert, right on future subway station);


http://westsideaction.blogspot.ca/20...-lrt-will.html

and Broccolini Construction (between Albert and Slater, along with 3 storey commercial building on the right of pic below);


http://www.obj.ca/Real-Estate/Non-re...Alterna-land/1

And the third with the biggest potential, owned by Brookfield as part of Place de Ville, a massive hotel and office complex that will have a direct connection to the Lyon subway station, stands on the corner of Kent and Queen. It is currently being used for the Confederation Line's central shaft and staging area;


http://www.obj.ca/Real-Estate/Non-re...ce-potential/1

[SignalHillHiker]

This thread needs "shame" in the title somehow.

We do well enough in downtown St. John's.

Most surface parking lots are small and relatively well concealed from public view, such as those indicated by red arrows.

Others are offensive, gaping holes in the street wall, such as the one indicated by the blue arrow. However, almost all of these have development projects associated with them. The blue arrow, for example, points to a lot that will soon be a beautiful expansion of the nearby Marriott Hotel.



We have two hideous parking garages downtown as well. One located beside City Hall, the other beside Atlantic Place. But... they beat surface lots.

In this example, the red arrows point to those two parking garages. The blue arrow points to the Bowring Downtown Centre, which is not a parking garage but does have parking on its roof. And the orange arrow points to the most offensive surface parking lot in St. John's.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

This thread needs "shame" in the title somehow.

Be my guest! You can change it to "Great Canadian Shameful Parking Lot Thread" or something.

St-John's doesn't seem to bad. Hopefully those can be filled in in the near future.

Thinking of historic St-John's reminds me of something else, another shameful thing; demolishing awesome historic buildings for new developments when you have a bunch of parking lots or ugly buildings begging to be redeveloped.

[SignalHillHiker]

Done.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Done.

Thanks!

[lio45]

The heart of downtown Sherbrooke:

https://maps.google.ca/?ll=45.400966...01725&t=h&z=19


As you will have guessed, the satellite pic was taken outside business hours.

[Beedok]

Hamilton's shame.

[MonkeyRonin]

The biggest parking lot left in downtown Toronto - and which oddly enough has no signs of disappearing anytime soon aside from some vague rumblings of development. Developers are stuffing buildings into every square inch of land possible in the rest of the city, meanwhile we have this nice big, empty plot of land right in the centre of town just sitting there looking shitty.



View from My Condo (Night) by bklorfine, on Flickr