Parking in Waterloo Region

[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.)