Parking in Waterloo Region

[MidTowner]

I agree with that: store your personal property on your personal property. I like the solution they have in Tokyo and Beijing and other very large cities, where you can not purchase a vehicle without a parking spot.

If it's a choice between letting motorists leave their cars in the street, or freeing up that space for wider sidewalks, or green space, I'm in favour of the latter. Unfortunately, I think here it's more a choice between letting motorists leave their cars in the street, or having them tear up their front lawns for parking pads and widening their driveways...

As for overnight bans, they're not uncommon, but they're not universal. Ottawa (as an example) is pretty snowy, but only has an overnight parking restriction during snow storms. And, on those nights, parking in their municipal garages is free.

[tomh009]

Toronto allows overnight parking for residents, but it's limited capacity. And you need to pay: $15/month for the first on-street permit if your property has no parking; $38/month for an additional space; and $53/month for residents who do have their own parking available.

$600/year for using the street is a fairly reasonable charge, and also discourages people from keeping too many cars.

[Markster]

Interesting turnabout!

Latest streetview shows a No Parking sign with an arrow pointing one way:
https://goo.gl/maps/VKyVtc2FToz

Streetview from 2009 shows a No Parking sign pointing both ways:
https://goo.gl/maps/yZDXkPdG2GU2

Word is that the city claims there has never been parking on that section of Benton.  But if so, they clearly screwed up when they replaced the sign years ago.

[KevinL]

Curious! The no-parking zone resumes at the green house (second from Courtland) in the 2015 imagery, and is continuous in 2009.

[Coke6pk]

Interesting turnabout!

Latest streetview shows a No Parking sign with an arrow pointing one way:
https://goo.gl/maps/VKyVtc2FToz

Streetview from 2009 shows a No Parking sign pointing both ways:
https://goo.gl/maps/yZDXkPdG2GU2

Word is that the city claims there has never been parking on that section of Benton.  But if so, they clearly screwed up when they replaced the sign years ago.

I will hazard a guess that parking has always been outlawed on that street according to the regulations.  There is a period of time when the NPA signs were only stopping at the intersections.... I am *assuming* this was a temporary measure (iON construction perhaps) to mitigate issues with the local residents.

Just a guess...

Coke

[Canard]

Or when Arrow Lofts was built, and they didn't have enough parking?

[plam]

Donald Shoup acknowledges that in California it would be unthinkable to ban residents from storing their cars in front of their houses and so instead proposes that nonresidents pay for it (with the money benefiting residents). That's not the situation we have here. He also writes that having curb cuts for parking essentially means that you lose the same amount of curb space but then only you can use the parking (which is on your property) vs the street parking, which others can presumably use.

I don't think it's necessarily bad to have cars stored in streets if the alternative is to store them in driveways. It is probably better urban form to have cars in streets rather than driveways. Driveways make houses be further apart and more urban than suburban. Probably best of all would be to have nearby consolidated parking structures where people store their cars.

In Montreal there is resident parking, but you have to move your car effectively twice a week for street cleaning in the summer. In winter, you have to move your car when there is a storm (before they tow/move it). Also in e.g. the Plateau there really isn't anywhere to store your car except in the street. So it's just a pain.

(And I think the overnight parking ban is just weird. I think that having to move the car also might be a good disincentive to owning too many cars.)

[tomh009]

Or when Arrow Lofts was built, and they didn't have enough parking?

Possibly ... but before people moved in.  Google Street View in August 2011 shows signs that allow parking.

So if parking was actually disallowed all this time, then (1) someone, for some reason, replaced the correct signs with incorrect ones in 2010 or 2011, and (2) no one noticed for six years.  Occam's razor says this probably not the explanation.

[SammyOES2]

This may be how it is used, but this is fundamentally wrong, public space should not be used for storage of private property.   Until I can use the parking space in front of my house to store a fridge, I shouldn't be able to use it to store a car.

Edit: What about bikes?

But the bigger reason this is such an absurd point of view is that it misses the whole point of Government/Society in general.  The whole concept of public spaces is that "as a collective society" we decide on some things being ok and others not being ok.  Collectively, we've decided that being able to store a fridge on public ground has no benefit.  Collectively, we've decided that being able to park a car does have benefit.  You can disagree with that, but when talking about these things there are few absolutes - just different people with different priorities.  

You could make your same absolute arguments for things like expropriation.  It's fundamentally wrong to take someone else's property from them against their will.  Except as a society we have chosen situations where it is ok.  

I feel like this forum has a lot of people that think their personal opinions on whats good/bad for society are facts - instead of opinions.

[MidTowner]

I feel like planet Earth has a lot of people that think their personal opinions on what's good or bad are facts instead of just opinions. But you're right about their not being many absolutes- subsidies are bad, but of course we subsidize all kinds of things in ways that aren't immediately obvious. Which are bad or good? You're right: it's a matter of opinion.

Street parking is an interesting topic, and I think plam's post makes it clear how nuanced it is. I have to say, as untenable it is here, I like the policy of big cities like Tokyo and Beijing to require a person to have access to a parking spot before buying a car, but it has unintended consequences as everything does.

I don't think we really have collectively decided that being able to park a car on a street has benefit, in any kind of methodical way. I think we've just done that for so long that it has come to be viewed as an entitlement that people won't give up.

[darts]

By "mindset", I refer to the mindset of our parking regulations and road construction.  Roads here are mostly for moving cars at maximum speed. Parking is allowed, on side streets, if it fits, maybe.

In all my travels, I have not personally experienced more restrictive parking than we have here.
The bans on overnight parking in Kitchener and Waterloo.
There is almost universally no parking on arterials (save for grandfathered street parking on King St in Downtown and Uptown) I was shocked when I learned parking was allowed on Benton, because it's just so unusual here.
No Parking zones are liberally sprinkled through residential areas.

It's no wonder that students move into the Northdale neighbourhood, and are surprised when they can't find a parking space.  Most cities allow street parking, and that generally serves as a buffer for when a building's own parking is overloaded.  Waterloo is the odd one out.

This may be how it is used, but this is fundamentally wrong, public space should not be used for storage of private property.   Until I can use the parking space in front of my house to store a fridge, I shouldn't be able to use it to store a car.

But I wouldn't think this would be an issue in Canada, or anywhere it snows a lot for that matter.  Are overnight bans not common in the winter for plowing.  London has this as well.

How dare on street parking facilitate visitors come to birthday parties or to visit friends.

[jamincan]

The obvious benefit is that if I have some sort of occasion with guests, I don't have to provide them with off-street parking.

[darts]

I don't think that the issue is so much people temporarily parking to visit,  so much as families with a single card driveway and 4 cars who make street parking a way of life.

I didn't think they could park overnight though

[danbrotherston]

I don't think that the issue is so much people temporarily parking to visit,  so much as families with a single card driveway and 4 cars who make street parking a way of life.

I didn't think they could park overnight though

Chicopee is absolutely correct, I was referring specifically to people who monopolize the parking in front of their home with their personal property.

There is no overnight parking in the winter here, but the conversation was both more general than that, and as others have pointed out, some people make other arrangements in the winter, then fill up the streets in the summer.

IMO, street parking should be highly limited, and only for temporary guests.

[Canard]

I believe that the restriction (at least in Kitchener) is November 30 to March 30 or something like that. That's when you see cars parked sideways on boulevards and lawns. For the rest of the year, most residential streets become parking lots.

3 hours in Kitchener, unless signposted otherwise. My street is signed "No Parking" from Jan 1 to March 31, so I thought I was fine to park our 2nd car on the street (we have a long driveway, but narrow - so I was forever shuffling our cars around so eventually just left one on the road). All my neighbours do that, too. Well, one day we all came out to our cars with tickets on them. Now, nobody parks on the street, except very briefly.

We have a super-narrow road and having some cars there acted very much as traffic calming. Now, people use it as a through-street and go racing down it at 70 km/h. I hate it.