Parking in Waterloo Region

[cherrypark]

I've wondered if there was something the city could do to compel developers building over zoning to add additional garage space in order for them to at least incrementally replace the city's surface capacity and give the chance to convert that land in to park space or civic amenities. Not that larger podium garages are a particularly good downstream impact of that, however.

Building another garage is in the capital projects budget, if I recall. It is such an enormous sink of capital, locks up city lands, and still suffers as the other garages do from centralizing the parking capacity to one spot, vs. more distributed for people trying to get close to a destination.

Hopefully at least some the largest offenders here get on the track to redevelopment soon. A bit disappointed the U. Waterloo plans for the "Innovation Arena" don't yet seem to consider doing something more than parking with that enormous swath of gravel and existing lot. And the sooner that Manulife parking gets redeveloped the better. It and the Sun Life one in midtown are in tight competition for the biggest waste of space.