Parking in Waterloo Region

[MidTowner]

Yes, there are possible benefits, but like most things man kind does, if you get an inch, you take a mile, and people feel an "entitlement" to that asphalt in front of their house.  I can't agree that we should be "encouraging more of it", as in some neighbourhoods its already out of control.  [Fine example is the Activa Ave area.  There is an S bend street there that had legal parking on both sides.  The city allowed the developer to have single car driveways, so every house had 1-2 cars on the street.  If I drove a car down this street and faced an oncoming car, one of us would be pulling into a driveway to let the other pass.  Now lets think about a fire truck/ambulance on this same street and you know where I'm coming from.  It's a drastic example of failure on the developer and the city's planning dept.]

There are well-documented benefits to on-street parking. I hear a lot of anecdotal musings about cars parked on-street possibly slowing down emergency vehicles, but haven't seen any solid research about how it does. "Emergency vehicle access" is the same reason a lot of people advocate for super-wide roads that invariably lead to dangerous speeding. The fact is, on a narrow street in a dense neighbourhood with street parking, one car has to pull to the side and let the other pass, which is a positive in terms of liveability and safety of that street. In the case of emergency vehicles, they have sirens for a reason.

I don't know that specific street near Activa Ave, but I would consider it a planning success. The alternative to that situation would be double-wide driveways, meaning wider lots, meaning less density and all the costs that go with low density. And, of course, less efficient pivate parking rather than efficient public parking.

If that street or any other has no parking available because of high demand, there is a very simple answer to that: price the parking such that the demand curve moves, and more parking becomes available to those willing to pay a more market-based price for it. That's a much better solution than reducing supply of it and requiring more land to be given over to private parking used a fraction of the time.