Parking in Waterloo Region

[MidTowner]

These are some of the key principals behind an article I believe called The High Price of Free Parking.  Worth a read if you haven't

Thanks, Spokes. I happen to have read that a while back, and it's a great recommendation. The fellow who wrote it, Shoup, has written much else on parking, including implementation of dynamic parking pricing (changing the price during different periods to manage demand, so there is always some parking available).

[BuildingScout]

Spokes is right that the right price needs to be found for parking, especially if it's over-subscribed at its current price ("free"). There are some people who won't tolerate any parking charge because they think it's their right to have other people subsidize their transportation choices. Most people will tolerate some level of charge, beyond which they will change their behaviour somehow. It needs to be understood how they might change their behaviour- it's not true that everyone will do the same thing. But, if the garage is full now, the price needs to go up.

This is faulty logic. For example the iXpress is often full during rush hour time. Does that mean price must go up? of course not. It means more buses need to be added to the route. The parking lots in Conestoga Mall are sometimes full the day before Christmas. Does that mean Conestoga Mall needs to start charging for parking? No, since the goal of the mall is to maximize the number of people who go to the mall.

The Kitchener market is no different. Their main metric is to maximize the number of shoppers there. If the garage is full they can do two things: (1) nothing as it is today and let the overflow people deal with it or (2) build more parking.

I go to the market every so often and I find (1) quite reasonable. About half the time I get free parking in the building, the rest I pay at any of the paid parking lots nearby or park on the street.

[MidTowner]

This is faulty logic. For example the iXpress is often full during rush hour time. Does that mean price must go up? of course not. It means more buses need to be added to the route. The parking lots in Conestoga Mall are sometimes full the day before Christmas. Does that mean Conestoga Mall needs to start charging for parking? No, since the goal of the mall is to maximize the number of people who go to the mall.

The Kitchener market is no different. Their main metric is to maximize the number of shoppers there. If the garage is full they can do two things: (1) nothing as it is today and let the overflow people deal with it or (2) build more parking.

I have rarely driven to the Kitchener Market, so I'm not personally too aware of the parking situation. I've heard elsewhere that the garage is full. I hear from posters on the board that it is often full, slow to get in and out of, and so on. That means that there is insufficient supply to meet demand at the current price. You're right that one response to this is to increase supply. That would mean in this case expanding a parking garage at significant cost. The other response would be to increase price to reduce demand. I know that, for a lot of people, the answer is always "build more parking." At least sometimes, that's not possible or desireable. Or cost-efficient.

It's funny that you mention the fact that a shopping mall parking lot might be full on one day of the year (I think I've read that it's actually the last Saturday before Christmas that is busiest). Malls are in the habit of designing parking for the peak day, which means that that infrastructure is wasted on the other 364. Maybe they should charge for parking on the busiest days, to avoid the cost of maintaining parking that is not used the vast majority of the time.

I actually do think that the Kitchener Market is different from the Conestoga Mall, though. It's located downtown, not on the periphery. It's well-served by public transit. It is publically-owned. I'm not sure what it's performance metrics include, but I don't think an appropriate policy would be them to pursue free parking at all costs.

[BuildingScout]

I know that, for a lot of people, the answer is always "build more parking." At least sometimes, that's not possible or desireable. Or cost-efficient.

I actually do think that the Kitchener Market is different from the Conestoga Mall, though. It's located downtown, not on the periphery. It's well-served by public transit. It is publically-owned. I'm not sure what it's performance metrics include, but I don't think an appropriate policy would be them to pursue free parking at all costs.

I think people exaggerate how bad it gets. As I said about half of the time I get free parking, the other half I find paid parking or free parking on the street parking quickly enough.

Second, I'm a big advocate in general of (1) public transit and (2) drivers paying upfront a bigger share of the infrastructure they use.

However this doesn't mean I blindly support any action in this regard. I've criticized here, for example, suburban bus routes as being counterproductive and similarly I have also explained why a trip to the market with the entailing heavy grocery load isn't an ideal candidate for a bus trip.

[clasher]

A bundle buggy takes up less room on the bus than most strollers do these days, it's not really that onerous to shop by bus. Lots of people have no choice but to shop by bus, I grew up helping my mother do the shopping on foot, bike or bus depending.

If the market parking is maxed out they should build more parking but as we've seen here drivers don't really want to pay for it in part and the general idea is that the non-drivers should be subsidizing driver parking so that the market is as busy as it can be for 3 hours a week.

Besides, the parking at St. Jacobs will probably be free so it's not like there isn't a car-culture friendly alternative out there.

[BuildingScout]

A bundle buggy takes up less room on the bus than most strollers do these days, it's not really that onerous to shop by bus.

Is not the space in the bus, have you tried you walk a couple of unshovelled blocks with a bundle buggy? Say from the corner of Allen and King to Allen and Moore and then North on Moore?

[MidTowner]

Is not the space in the bus, have you tried you walk a couple of unshovelled blocks with a bundle buggy? Say from the corner of Allen and King to Allen and Moore and then North on Moore?

This is a different issue, and I agree with you: poor accommodation is made to people on foot during the winter months. But a lot of people do walk, and a lot of people have little choice but to.

Arguing that non-motorists should subsidize motorists because it's inconvenient to walk (something that non-motorists are of course impacted by) doesn't make much sense to me.

[BuildingScout]

This is a different issue, and I agree with you: poor accommodation is made to people on foot during the winter months. But a lot of people do walk, and a lot of people have little choice but to.

Arguing that non-motorists should subsidize motorists because it's inconvenient to walk (something that non-motorists are of course impacted by) doesn't make much sense to me.

The first paragraph says that if some people suffer, then all people must too.

As for the second we cross-subsidize all the time, including over 50% of the bus fare. So the argument of X subsidizing Y is pretty much moot. For example, our society has, by design, the rich subsidizing the poor. I'm in favour of this even though I'm more of a payer than a payee in that system.

[MidTowner]

We subsidize public transit specifically because we think it's a public good, and mobility for everyone is important. You talk about our society organizing itself such that the rich subsidize the poor, but when we think about free parking, the generally less affluent (non-car-drivers) subsidize the more affluent (motorists).

I personally don't think that to walk is to suffer. I love walking. Walking has a lot of benefits, and we'd do well to encourage it. But, if you do think it's a hardship, what you're doing is asking people not only to endure hardship, but also to pay for your comfort.

[nms]

Besides, the parking at St. Jacobs will probably be free so it's not like there isn't a car-culture friendly alternative out there.

At peak times (Saturdays or mid-summer), the St. Jacobs market parking lot is full and cars spill into neighbouring parking lots.  Often cars will circle looking for closer parking rather than parking further away.  I park across Weber Street in the Market-owned lot and use a wagon to take my goods from the Market to my car.  I have heard rumours that they are exploring some sort of parking structure to handle the increasing number of cars.

Similarly, I wonder how Conestoga Mall (and to a lesser extent, Fairview Mall) plans to deal with Park-and-Ride traffic that boards the Ion to travel south (or north).  Regional staff have told me that they hope that users from outside the Region to drive to these stations and then continue their journeys to the cores by LRT.  Could we someday see the malls expand up while including a couple levels of underground parking?

[Markster]

I suspect they will tolerate it for a while, on the idea that people may come into the mall on either end of their journey.
Eventually, if they are seeing a parking crunch, usually the first step is to institute a 2hr parking limit near the station.
The second step is to sign a portion of the lot as "park-and-ride" or "no park-and-ride"
Finally, you start to charge for the park-and-ride lot, as I believe is done at the Yorkdale lot in Toronto.

Fairview will fair better, as the station is located nearer to their excess parking. Conestoga's station is right in the heart of the most heavily used parking.

[MidTowner]

Human Transit has a neat article about park-and-ride. It doesn't specifically say it, but it can be inferred from the idea that "transit increases land values" that multi-level parking eventually becomes a sensible thing for park-and-ride at higher-level transit. I do really wonder if and when we'll see a move towards that. I wonder what kind of subscription the idea of park-and-ride will have at Conestoga and Fairview.

[clasher]

A bundle buggy takes up less room on the bus than most strollers do these days, it's not really that onerous to shop by bus.

Is not the space in the bus, have you tried you walk a couple of unshovelled blocks with a bundle buggy? Say from the corner of Allen and King to Allen and Moore and then North on Moore?

Yeah, I walk from Vic Park to the market and back often enough, carrying my groceries and the only time I'm walking is when the weather is really bad since driving is even worse in the core when everything is snowy and greasy. I think that the cities should be clearing sidewalks so that people could actually walk a kilometre with a stroller or a bundle buggy in the winter, many people have no other choice in the matter. I would rather see money spent on sidewalk plowing than subsidizing the market parking.

[BuildingScout]

They go hand in hand. Clear the sidewalks and you get no complaints from me for walking and taking the bus to the market. So long as the sidewalks are not cleared, one has to drive to the market.

[KevinL]

I take a buggy on the bus to the market nearly every weekend (even last weekend, when the snow was terrible). I've had very few issues.