Parking in Waterloo Region

[Spokes]

Article in The Record talking about a long awaited parking garage for Uptown Waterloo, that will be delayed due to the city's ability to find a developer to help fund the project. No location has been decided.
http://m.therecord.com/news-story/624182...years-away

Isn't the uptown parkade often half empty?

[nms]

It's always a game. The Uptown parkade was intended to provide parking for people working in the Uptown area. However, with a wide selection of free parking, many workers chose to forego the cost of a parking pass and instead dodge the parking enforcement officers.

The Uptown core is always going to have a need for a certain degree of parking. Has anyone seen general figures for how much parking (paid/free; covered/outdoor etc) is ideal for a downtown area? For instance, if even half of a 100-person workplace's staff walk/bike/transit, that still means that there would be a need for 50 parking spots somewhere nearby.

[mpd618]

The Uptown core is always going to have a need for a certain degree of parking.  Has anyone seen general figures for how much parking (paid/free; covered/outdoor etc) is ideal for a downtown area?  For instance, if even half of a 100-person workplace's staff walk/bike/transit, that still means that there would be a need for 50 parking spots somewhere nearby.

There really can't be a single answer. It depends on a lot, especially on land value and the transportation system leading to the downtown, and there's a feedback cycle with those things. And while there have been a number of North American downtown that have improved as the amount of parking (created in the 60s and 70s) has gone down, I haven't heard of any that have hit some lower bound for reasonableness.

[Markster]

Waterloo has approved new parking (a garage?) in Uptown

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">$10M parking investment approved. <a href="https://twitter.com/WhaleyWaterloo">@WhaleyWaterloo</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/DianeLFreeman">@DianeLFreeman</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/bourkebrian">@bourkebrian</a> voted against. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/watbudget?src=hash">#watbudget</a></p>&mdash; Abigail Bimman (@AbigailCTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/AbigailCTV/status/696865296984965120">February 9, 2016</a></blockquote>

[clasher]

An "investment" eh? I wonder what kind of returns it will bring? I assume this will be on the former postal lands on Regina?

[Viewfromthe42]

An "investment" eh? I wonder what kind of returns it will bring? I assume this will be on the former postal lands on Regina?

Certainly hope not! There were many, many proposals for mixed-use residential on par with 1Vic or City Centre there. To see that lot potentially become solely a parking fixture would be an utter, disgusting waste.

[MidTowner]

Maybe if a parking garage is built some of the land fronting Caroline can be opened to redevelopment?

[Markster]

For a sense of scale, the 504-spot Charles/Benton garage cost $15.2 million.

[GtwoK]

I don't know the politics behind city planning and whatnot, but how does something like a $10m parking garage get approved without prior public knowledge? Or even knowledge after the fact, considering it seems we still don't know where it is?

[tomh009]

Apparently location is still TBD, they have only approved funding so far. Which certainly does appear to be within the scope of powers of the city council.

[nms]

If there are no plans or site chosen, this could also mean that if, in the future, a developer pitches a proposal, the City could offer $10 million to add below-grade public parking to the site. I believe the debate over who would pay for additional underground parking on Willis Way is among the things that eliminated the recent hotel proposal there.

[mpd618]

If there are no plans or site chosen, this could also mean that if, in the future, a developer pitches a proposal, the City could offer $10 million to add below-grade public parking to the site.  I believe the debate over who would pay for additional underground parking on Willis Way is among the things that eliminated the recent hotel proposal there.

I like this option a lot.

[zanate]

If there are no plans or site chosen, this could also mean that if, in the future, a developer pitches a proposal, the City could offer $10 million to add below-grade public parking to the site.  I believe the debate over who would pay for additional underground parking on Willis Way is among the things that eliminated the recent hotel proposal there.

I like this option a lot.

I do too, minus that little problem I seem to keep hearing about, of the difficulty going further underground in parts of uptown.

[mpd618]

I do too, minus that little problem I seem to keep hearing about, of the difficulty going further underground in parts of uptown.

Well, the part that I care about is that it's in a mixed-use building. If the parking is above ground like in 1 Victoria, that's OK too.

[MidTowner]

I think the parking garage on Charles was extremely well-executed. It looks attractive, and provided some new retail spaces. Waterloo would do well aiming for something like that Uptown.