This morning, Premier McGuinty announced that, with the generous assistance of our friends in Ottawa, we are about to see a boom in transit spending. On parking lots.
About $175-million will go to expanded parking at 12 GO Transit sites, half of which will receive parking structures. This marks a reversal from the “we won’t build structures because they’re too expensive” policy of many years. Moreover, it does nothing to address capacity on trains nor on the local transit systems that many GO riders use to reach those trains.
Metrolinx may be working on a regional plan, but this announcement sounds like an echo of the days when commuting meant driving to a parking lot. Yes, we can build it quickly, but is this what we should be doing with transit infrastructure dollars.
Lurking down at the end of the announcement, almost as an afterthought, is $75.5-million for the Hamilton Junction grade separation.
It appears that the cost of these projects will be shared 50/50 by both governments.
Steve Munro 
McGuinty from the announcement: “When transit is more convenient, more people leave their car at home. ” [but just in case they don’t, they’ll need to park it somewhere]
LikeLike
Yeah, and is this just an announcement with no money attached? Or will the money actually be forthcoming from the federal government? There are a lot of announcements without money being given.
I think the money would be better spent improving service. How many more riders can you attract by expanding parking?
Steve: According to the Star “Today’s funding is a part of the previously announced $3.09 billion Ontario will receive from Ottawa’s Building Canada program. ” This isn’t even new money. Just a photo op.
LikeLike
Well, at least someone is thinking about the many transit riders that will be unfairly inconvenienced by the TTC charging parking for metropass users. But it doesn’t help my wife because the closest GO station to us is Kipling, which has no parking for GO Transit users. And oh wait, it will actually COST money for anyone to park there, whether it be GO or TTC.
LikeLike
Yeah! More parking! That will certainly improve GO Transit!
I’ve always resented the fact that when I lived in Brampton, my overpriced GO fare helped to subsizide the massive seas of parking GO builds. My monthly pass didn’t even give me the level of service that most other corridors enjoyed either, like even hourly weekend/evening bus service to Union Station (we were told to take the local bus and spend more than twice the time – and pay a TTC fare – to get downtown after peak hours).
I thought I saw some changes at GO, like nice new bike shelters and proposals for stations in Guelph and Kitchener that will actually be downtown and a slow shift towards becoming a real transit system. But GO can still have the mentality of a parking authority.
LikeLike
The parking work sums to $173.1 million, plus Hamilton Junction work at $75.5 million, which gives us a total of $248.6 mil… that still leaves more than half of this $500 mil unaccounted for.
It’s very much contrary to the M.O. of the Harper government’s previous actions on the infrastructure file to give the provinces money without first very precisely figuring out what they’ll be spent on (and what Tory MPs will be able to cut the ribbon), so it’s…. interesting for them to say they’re in for a splitting a cheque for $500 mil without nailing down where the other half will go. Still some fed/prov/GO haggling over the second-half projects, perhaps? Or was this all about announcing a large number but having no intention of ever flowing the money for more than half of it?
LikeLike
I am still waiting for the Harper government to announce spending on local transit in Toronto and the Toronto area (aside from the Spadina subway extension). There have been announcements about spending on Union Station and on GO parking lots, but nothing for actual local service…
LikeLike
To answer my own question, the CBC report (QuickTime video) on this announcement indicates that the press at today’s announcement noticed the missing quarter million, too. It seems the best they could tease out it is that it would appear to be related to service improvements and will be announced later.
The thing is, these parking improvements are basically going to necessitate service improvements. Quite frankly, I don’t think these people parking their cars in these new spaces are going to have train seats to sit in.
For many years GO has been adamant that parking capacity was the big bottleneck preventing higher ridership, I think the last 12-18 months may have shown otherwise. Compared to the last big orgy of paving that GO went through, in the last little while they’ve been pretty restrained in terms of how much new parking capacity has been added, and yet ridership has nonetheless found a way to increase at a faster rate. (People are clearly finding some other way of getting to the station, be it parking illegally on-street or kiss-and-riding)
When these plans for parking structures were drawn up ~18 months ago, GO presumably thought that by adding parking spaces they could leverage unused capacity out of their existing train trips. The move to 12-car trains was going to be all it took. I don’t know if that’s the case anymore.
The new structure in Burlington cost $20 million and fits 800 cars; so that means these $30.5 mil monsters going in at Ajax, Cooksville, Erindale, Oakville and Pickering are probably in the neighbourhood of ~1200 cars each. As can be seen on GO’s on-time performance tables, though, there are more passengers than seats on pretty much all the main rush hour runs running through those stations… the new 12-car trains were supposed to buy a bit of breathing room for a few years, but ridership is keeping pace and it’s still standing room only. And as GO is always at pains to point out, the number of trips they can run is currently constrained by the amount of rolling stock they have and track issues with the freight railways.
LikeLike
Cough* Cough* Was there a transit impovement in the 500 million somewhere?
Hey as long as they are not on the 400 series highways we don’t care about local congestion…anyone with any sense living in the 905 should be angry.
Thank you very much.
LikeLike
Do those new parkades come plated with gold and have specially trained French valets?
LikeLike
Grotesque. This is about subsidizing the private automobile (and sprawl/land speculation). And even with these and other subsidies the entire auto industry is in a tailspin. Leave it to Harper (and McGuinty) to use public funds to help prop up this failing, old economy industry while pretending to help public transit.
LikeLike
Wow, what a waste of good money! One bad thing about additional GO parking is that it will create even more bottlenecks around suburban stations – stations that are located in areas that do not have the infrastructure to handle that kind of infusion of traffic.
I’m not saying there should not be parking at GO stops (people driving to GO rather than driving downtown is clearly the lesser of two evils), but the focus should be on improving service first. Add more stops so that you don’t have entire communities heading towards a single station, improve local bus service to encourage people to take transit to the station rather than drive, and improve frequencies to make the service convenient and reliable.
LikeLike
Some of these parking structures are going in the worst possible places. Cooksville being the worst offender. Right in the heart of Mississauga’s busiest two bus routes, Dundas and Hurontario, both of which are slated to get LRT, would have provided a great opportunity for GO. Now these parking structures are going to screw it all up. Erindale as well, which is going to be alongside the Transitway, if they actually thought about connecting to it (it should be obvious), would see improved access as well.
Durham locations, I’m not surprised. Durham’s a dog’s breakfast when it comes to local service.
However, if these millions of dollars were spent on DRT instead of parking structures for GO, how many more riders would you be able to bring to the GO for the same buck?
As for Bramalea, ugh, I can’t believe they’re expanding that already massive abomination. Do they really think nobody ever has to walk across that thing?! (yes, I’ve walked across it… yes, it’s harsh).
LikeLike
Wow, this is horrible news. So much for sustainability. Tomorrow the relevancy of Jane Jaccobs will be explored on TVO. I hope someone will note that in the GTA we often talk about sustainable cities and livability, but in reality we are no where near divorcing ourselves from car centric planning. So many other major metropolitan centres are leaving us behind. I can’t speak for some of the other stations, but I can tell you that the last thing that Cooksville GO Station needs is additional parking. The 30 million dollars would be much better spent on improvements to local transit and to pedestrian infrastructure.
Cooksville GO Station lacks basic amenities. For instance, there currently isn’t any way for pedestrians to cross from the east side of the street to local buses on the west side without dodging six lanes of traffic. The local express bus (MT 202) does not even have a stop at the station. The few local feeder buses that do enter the station have to line up with the single occupant vehicles because the main entrance to the station isn’t on Hurontario (Mississauga’s main street), but in the centre of the surface parking lot.
LikeLike
I’ve never had the impression that Harper and his cohorts have been all that excited about steel wheels on steel rails.
And Harper never changes his stripes. A crises may force him to accept some change but he soon returns to his normal ways of thinking.
LikeLike
The TTC admiral mentioned that one of the reasons TTC free parking lots will go paid is due to the fact that people park in them then go across the street for work and not use them for their purpose (to use the TTC). So on the GO transit side………all these extra parking lots. Whats to stop drivers who work in the surrounding areas to park in the GO Transit parking lots and then go across the street for work?
I do see one side of the parking lots that they can be good, at least commuters will leave their cars in their communities (nearest GO Transit stop/station) instead of having all those cars go all the way downtown or the rest of the city.
I seriously hope the parking lots do not turn out like the one in Fairview Mall (I know it isn’t a GO station). 6 stories where 5 & 6 are ttc (does anyone know why the top two stories are ttc and not 1 & 2?).
Steve: Simple. The TTC users are assumed to be all-day commuters who will put up with the inconvenience. The shoppers need to be close, close, close to those stores lest they be dissauded from parting with whatever spare change they still might have.
LikeLike
Andrew Says:
“I am still waiting for the Harper government to announce spending on local transit in Toronto and the Toronto area (aside from the Spadina subway extension). There have been announcements about spending on Union Station and on GO parking lots, but nothing for actual local service…”
Haha,… that’s a good one. Oh, I’m sorry,… I thought you were joking.
The Harper government spending federal tax money on local transit in Toronto,… mainly full of LIBERAL & some NDP ridings. Notice this announcement and great photo op for expanded parking lots for GO Stations in 905,… 905 is both Liberal and Tory,… Liberal at boarders near Toronto and Tory further out.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/map/2008/#196
“Mr. McGuinty said Ottawa and Queen’s Park will spend $500-million to improve GO Transit, split 50-50. Of that money, $173-million will add 6,800 parking spots for GO commuters. GO Train stations in Ajax, Pickering and Oakville, along with two stations in Mississauga (Cooksville and Erindale) each get a car parking garage, costing $30-million each. Barrie South, Mount Pleasant, Bramalea, Centennial, Unionville, Stouffville and Rouge Hill stations get expanded GO parking lots.”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/02/17/harper-ventures-into-ignatieff-territory-with-a-little-cash-for-go-transit.aspx
Huh? $173 million for 6,800 parking spots,… that averages to $25,441 per parking spot! Dude, you can buy a pretty nice BRAND NEW CAR for that amount of cash! And people wonder where our Canadian tax money go,…
Oh I just love this part of the article: “(The photo op took the train out of service for a day, because Mr. Harper insisted the locomotive should face west. “Normally all our locomotives are east-facing,” a GO staffer told me. GO took it over to the VIA yards to turn it around, and then turned it back around after the PM departed).” It really shows Prime Minister Harper’s commitment to commuter transit,… taking a brand new GO train out of service for the whole day for a really nice photo op and insisting it faces west,… it’s a train not his coffin.
As for the $2.8 Billion (Ont: $1,100million, Feds: $698million, Toronto: $600million, YorkRegion: $400million) 8.6km Spadina Subway Extension from Downsview Station to Vaughan Costco Centre (Hwy 7 & Weston) that was due mainly to former Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara (Provincial Liberal) and coincidentally it goes right to his Vaughan Centre riding. Go figure! NOTICE: in the above Federal Election map, that 905 Thornhill riding where the Spadina subway extension will travel through is the only Tory blue area in a sea of Liberal Red.
As for local service in Toronto,… pretty soon people living at Yonge and Eglinton trying to get board Yonge Subway to work Downtown will have better luck driving out to the GO Train Station in 905 where they can park their car and take the GO train to Union Station downtown.
Steve: Many years ago, it was well-documented that the cost of a parking space in a structure (as opposed to an open lot) was considerably higher than the vehicle. That’s one reason GO wouldn’t build this type of facility. However, now we all have to “do something” and construction for its own sake is an easy answer, always has been.
LikeLike
It certainly seems extremely odd to increase parking capacity when the trains don’t have the space to carry those passengers who currently park.
Here’s an idea: charge a small fee (say $1 or $2 per day) for parking before 9am, and then use the income from that to provide free rides on local transit to/from the GO station (i.e. reduce the co-fare to zero).
Oh, and shoot whoever thought putting cycle storage racks in the middle of car park rather than by the station was a good idea.
Steve: You are being so uncharitable to our fearless leaders. Don’t you understand this is all about job creation for construction, not for public transit. The workers don’t have to get on the train, just build the parking garage.
LikeLike
David O’Rourke Says:
“I’ve never had the impression that Harper and his cohorts have been all that excited about steel wheels on steel rails. And Harper never changes his stripes. A crises may force him to accept some change but he soon returns to his normal ways of thinking.”
Crisis? When gas was $1.40 per litre and inflation was hitting 4% last summer did our Prime Minister Harper from Oil rich Alberta do anything towards funding more public Transit?
Steve says:
“You are being so uncharitable to our fearless leaders. Don’t you understand this is all about job creation for construction, not for public transit. The workers don’t have to get on the train, just build the parking garage.”
Parking garages and parking lots uses asphalt,… asphalts comes from crude oil,… oil comes from Alberta,…. Prime Minister Harper comes from Alberta,… hmmmm,… $173 million will buy a lot of oil,… err, I mean asphalt.
Hey,… with all these GO train station parking spaces and job creation for construction they could kill another bird with the same stone,…. support the American auto industry directly! Think about it,…$173 million for 6,800 parking spots which averages to $25,441 per parking spot! Enough to buy a BRAND NEW CAR! So instead of building parking spots at $25,441 per parking spot,… just buy those brand new useless American Cars nobody wants but GM, Chrysler & Ford still keeps on building. Then use steam-rollers to flatten them like pancakes,… place them side by side on an open field and there you have a parking spot! The government can kill three birds with one stone,… build $25,441 per parking spot for GO train stations, job creation, and support the American Auto industry.
LikeLike
Miroslav: “The TTC admiral mentioned that one of the reasons TTC free parking lots will go paid is due to the fact that people park in them then go across the street for work and not use them for their purpose (to use the TTC). So on the GO transit side………all these extra parking lots. Whats to stop drivers who work in the surrounding areas to park in the GO Transit parking lots and then go across the street for work?”
This argument only applies to certain stations, but mostly at Finch, where there are several large office buildings and two large TTC lots. Even if you do charge for parking, let’s say $6, it is far better than the $10 that the office towers charge. But hey, lets ding the true commuters while we’re at it.
So there will still be people using these lots, too bad they won’t be TTC commuters. As for the stations receiving these proposed lots, they are mostly in suburban areas and not where parking is charged.
As for Fairview Mall, I not only am aware that this parking garage is underused, but the second and third levels are quite bare as well, the third being not connected to the mall itself. There are also so few shoppers on the second level. So why not make the third level as well as the “entrance ramp” parking positions available to TTC riders? There is always the possibility of “Straggling shoppers” (which also benefits the mall). And I could never figure out why the TTC did not make this lot Metropass accessible. Oh wait, I forgot that it is a moot point now…..
LikeLike
Parking garages at GO stations could have one redeeming quality: they could be used to free up land around the station for transit-oriented development. I have a sinking feeling that’s not happening, though.
Steve: If anything, garages can poison land at stations by putting a hulking, unfriendly structure right where Metrolinx might prefer to have a “mobility hub” complete with palm trees and cafes.
LikeLike
So as someone who lived in/around port credit for a while and drove to the station from what could be literally a two minutes walk away because of the lack of busses on mississauga road and good foot paths, this suburb vote-getting ploy by the pm is likely to be succesful. Not only does it get votes for the construction workers who have to build these monstrosoties, but the people who have to go kiss n ride or park way off in the overfloy parking are going to be mighty happy…the reality of course is that for less money they could have put a foot path across the new credit river bridge (that went in last summer) and opened up all of northern lorne park to foot traffic, and still had enough money to drive busses to everyone’s doors in the winter…
This really is a time for those of us who are knowledgable about transit, to educate the public that a seamingly good idea really will end up in pain for all, and at the same time stick it to harper for his silly photo ops…it already takes twenty minutes to get out of those parking lots now, I can’t imagine what will happen when there are twice as many cars…
LikeLike
Tom wrote, “Compared to the last big orgy of paving that GO went through, in the last little while they’ve been pretty restrained in terms of how much new parking capacity has been added,…”
Overall, this may be true, but at the Richmond Hill station it sure hasn’t been the case. Five years ago, there was a single parking lot with the station on the west side of Newkirk. Then a new L-shaped lot on the east side of the street was paved to add roughly another 50% to the number of spaces. About two years ago, the building that existed to create the L-shape of the parking lot was torn down and GO acquired that property an paved it, nearly doubling the capacity of the original lot.
The silly thing is, there are many parking spaces that are located a very short distance from the bus stop at Newkirk and Centre where one could (not that anyone does) take a bus to the GO station instead of walk the long hike to the station from those spots!
LikeLike
“Well, at least someone is thinking about the many transit riders that will be unfairly inconvenienced by the TTC charging parking for metropass users. But it doesn’t help my wife because the closest GO station to us is Kipling, which has no parking for GO Transit users. And oh wait, it will actually COST money for anyone to park there, whether it be GO or TTC.”
At least someone is thinking realistically…people WILL have cars and there is NOTHING you can do about it. What can be done is methods to make the use of the car minimized and instead maximize the use of public transit. This is the best way to do just that!
I will be greatly affected by this TTC Parking Charge and i am seriously contemplating carpooling with 2-3 people downtown and back daily since there is no GO Station with parking spots available nearby.
In all my life i never thought i would drive downtown and yet now…its actually becoming an option! Shame on the TTC!
Economical > Everything! The cheapest way is the only way!
LikeLike
I am simply tired of announcement after announcement with little or no action to follow. We have seen this cycle for almost 10 years now.
As my high school calculus teacher used to say ‘just do it’ or get off my damn tv!
LikeLike
“it already takes twenty minutes to get out of those parking lots now, I can’t imagine what will happen when there are twice as many cars…”
Probably twice as much gas will be burnt by idling vehicles, which in turn means twice as much money going out of auto-lemmings’ pockets and into corporate Conservative party supporters’ coffers, environment be damned.
LikeLike
Calvin Henry-Cotnam wrote “Overall, this may be true, but at the Richmond Hill station it sure hasn’t been the case. Five years ago, there was a single parking lot with the station on the west side of Newkirk. Then a new L-shaped lot on the east side of the street was paved to add roughly another 50% to the number of spaces. About two years ago, the building that existed to create the L-shape of the parking lot was torn down and GO acquired that property an paved it, nearly doubling the capacity of the original lot.”
Perhaps I should have been a bit more precise: up until about 18 months ago, GO was adding surface parking like there was no tomorrow, and had been for 5 or 6 years running–I’d include those big expansions at places like Richmond Hill and Mount Pleasant and the addition of Lisgar and so on. Then, at least in the case of their highest-demand stations, they literally ran out of room. There’s no way to add extra surface parking at stations like Oakville and Burlington because the lots now abut against pricey real estate on all sides.
It’s at this point that they starting thinking about multi-storey parkade structures as the only way to really augment capacity. But without specific megabucks capital influxes like we’re seeing now, GO could only build them from its own capital funds, and so we saw them build one in Burlington (opened 6 months ago) and start building a second in Whitby, I believe. When you’re financing these things on a pay-as-you-go basis, adding parkade spaces is inevitably going to be a slower process than just paving another acre on the end of an existing surface lot.
So even though the most dramatic increases in GO’s ridership in some time have occurred in the most recent 18 months, I figure that this same period has actually been something of a lower-than-average phase for parking space growth. (yes, there’s been some surface lot growth in Aldershot and Barrie, but they’re the exceptions.)
By the way, my hunch is that if you gave Peter Smith $500 million and let him buy whatever he liked with it to improve GO ridership, there probably would have been some new parking, but nowhere near as much as what was announced yesterday. I’d put good money on these structures having been sitting on a long-term capital list, and then getting plucked out as ‘quick-win’ projects by Harper’s folks ahead of some more complicated but higher-priority initiatives that would need EAs or negotiations with the railways. Three-tracking the Milton line, for instance, has been on GO’s capital plan since the Eves era but still hasn’t begun.
As Steve notes in one of his comments, the real objective here was making $200 million vanish into the hands of contractors as fast as possible, and if possible giving Tory candidates knocking on 905 doors this fall holes in the ground to point to.
LikeLike
I’m wondering if some of that left over quarter-billion is going to go towards adding new exits to the parking arenas. I’ve seen some sights at GO Parking Lots, such as Unionville (which is slated for expansion… not like there’s a lack of space, but this flies in the face of Markham’s planning policy), where it takes forever… and I mean forever, to get out of the parking lot. It’s longer than the headway on Viva Pink to leave the lot. Imagine how long it will take to get out of other lots from the top level of the multi-level structures!
LikeLike
Actually, the GO train that was used for the photo-op was not taken out of service. It was a spare consist, not a revenue train.
Yesterdays press conference was obviously a shameless photo-op as there were no new funding announcements. However, this the first time I’ve heard about the Hamilton jct rail-to-rail grade separation. This is a positive development, something that general public at large seems to have completely ignored. Every little project like this can make a big difference in the future.
The greatest impediment to any improvement in GO transit service is track capacity limitations. While the process has been slow, there has been progress, with much more to come. Personally I’m quite excited.
Steve: I agree that announcements of infrastructure and actual service improvements, even if they were only “what can be” based on new tracks and reduced bottlenecks in the network, would have been a real transit announcement. Instead we got parking.
If I wanted to be really cynical, I would suggest that those “professionals” we hear so much about in other posts could not get their act together on the complex technical business of actually improving service, and this left the pols hanging out to dry with only parking to announce. That’s my generous interpretation of what might have happened.
LikeLike
Stephen Cheung Says:
“This argument only applies to certain stations, but mostly at Finch, where there are several large office buildings and two large TTC lots. Even if you do charge for parking, let’s say $6, it is far better than the $10 that the office towers charge. But hey, let’s ding the true commuters while we’re at it.”
The best way would be for the TTC to just charge the market rate parking charges for the area where the parking lot is. Why should car drivers be subsidized by the TTC,.. who in turn need to receive subsidy from the Toronto property tax payers. Especially when most of these car drivers parking at TTC parking lots are 905ers coming from outside of Toronto.
Joseph C Says:
“At least someone is thinking realistically…people WILL have cars and there is NOTHING you can do about it. What can be done is methods to make the use of the car minimized and instead maximize the use of public transit. This is the best way to do just that!”,.. “I will be greatly affected by this TTC Parking Charge and i am seriously contemplating carpooling with 2-3 people downtown and back daily since there is no GO Station with parking spots available nearby.”,.. “In all my life i never thought i would drive downtown and yet now…its actually becoming an option! Shame on the TTC!”
Actually,… when you think about it,… even if you car pool with 2-3 other people all the way downtown,… you’ll probably be reducing your average carbon footprint! (assuming you drove just yourself to the parking lot) And now you’ll get to use the HOV lane too!
BTW,… since most of you weigh 150-200 lbs,… why do we need something that weighs more than 10 times we do (ie a car) to move us around? The more weight the more powerful engine you need and the more gas you burn.
Good luck finding a parking spot downtown. If you haven’t noticed, in the last 10 years,… most of those big parking lots have been converted to condos along the harbourfront or office towers,… technically same number of parking spots downtown,… just more public parking spots converted to private.
LikeLike
I’m pretty sure i mentioned parking structures in one of my previous posts. All I have to say it’s about time the government used some common sence to do something like this, although i wish they did this on somewhere on the Bloor-Danforth line (I would say Yonge line but that’s already at capacity).
Steve: The TTC has surface lots only because if they proposed parking structures, politicians would have balked at the cost of building and operating them, and neighbourhoods would scream about the traffic congestion. Suddenly Queen’s Park has some money, and they want to spend it fast. Is this the same Dalton McGuinty who bravely gave us MoveOntario 2020? I was tempted to call this post ParkOntario 2020, but didn’t in the hope that the coming budget will bring spending on much more useful projects that will actually move people around the GTAH.
LikeLike
Raymond Jean:
“The best way would be for the TTC to just charge the market rate parking charges for the area where the parking lot is. Why should car drivers be subsidized by the TTC,.. who in turn need to receive subsidy from the Toronto property tax payers. Especially when most of these car drivers parking at TTC parking lots are 905ers coming from outside of Toronto.”
Sure, why don’t we close all parking lots while we are at it. Surely, no TTC commuter who relies on the lots will ever use it considering that it is no better than driving down directly. The intention is to give the option to commuters who need to use the car a way to use public transit. And as I have mentioned up and down the board, charging parking for metropass users is the wrong way to go. No one wants to pay more to commute, whether it be through parking fees or increased TTC fares.
“BTW,… since most of you weigh 150-200 lbs,… why do we need something that weighs more than 10 times we do (ie a car) to move us around? The more weight the more powerful engine you need and the more gas you burn.”
This is the kind of anti-car mentality that spawns new expressways. And articles like this. http://www.caranddriver.com/features/columns/c_d_staff/patrick_bedard/save_energy_take_the_car_column
Until transit advocates realize that car commuters have an equal share in the commuting pie, you can expect more resistance to measures such as charging for parking and more calls for more expressways. That latter statement is something you surely do not want. You simply cannot go around and say “screw the car drivers”.
LikeLike
John Barber of the Globe & Mail wrote a critical article on “a world where free parking is called public transit.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090219.BARBER19/TPStory
LikeLike
Stephen Cheung Says:
“Sure, why don’t we close all parking lots while we are at it.”
Great idea,… close all TTC parking lots, especially the those huge parking lots on both side of Yonge at Finch station,…. that’s a huge chunk of land,… worth lots of money. I’m sure the TTC and the city of Toronto can use that money,… instead of trying to figure out how to charge kids a fee for using public pools.
Do you have any idea how many hundreds of millions of dollars that land being used by the TTC parking lot at Finch station is worth? Could you imagine the outrage if the TTC were to buy an equally large piece of land at Yonge and Eglinton or somewhere downtown to convert into a parking lot? Today the geographical centre of the GTA is Yonge and Sheppard,… in about 10 years, it’ll be Yonge and Finch,… do you think that parking lot will still be there in about 10 years? I’m sure there used to be a huge parking lot at Yonge and Eglinton at one time,….
Personally, I’d rather see that TTC Finch parking lot land converted to office, condos or even government housing,… anything better than keeping it as a mega parking lot.
Steve: First off, the land with the parking lots at Finch belongs to Ontario Hydro and is useless for development because it is a hydro corridor. I’m glad you think Yonge & Finch will such a bustling centre, and the owners of the half-empty office buildings probably want you to sign a long-term lease right now.
Down at Eglinton, there was a small lot on the southwest corner of Duplex and Eglinton, but it has a police station on it now.
Stephen Cheung Says:
“Surely, no TTC commuter who relies on the lots will ever use it considering that it is no better than driving down directly.”
So then drive downtown directly then. Good luck finding a parking spot downtown,… and how much would you pay for parking downtown? $25 per day seems to be standard at those downtown office buildings if you can even find a spot. $10 per day is standard around Yonge & Sheppard to Yonge & Finch. And if you use street parking anywhere close to downtown,… good luck avoiding any ticket,… those green hornets are really aggressive at handing out parking tickets.
Hey,… here’s an idea,.. try living closer to where you work,… or get a job closer to home,.. and reduce your carbon footprint.
Steve: I’m going to play devil’s advocate here to save Stephen Cheung from replying. First off, many families today are multi-job units and those jobs are scattered all over the place. Driving pretty much comes with the territory for at least some of those. Also, local transit is so piss-poor at anything than handling the peak wave, and not very good even at that, that driving to the subway/GO is often the only option many people have.
My complaint is that rather than addressing the problems of local transit and all day service, teh new parking lots simply reinforce the transit model of supporting peak direction commuting while doing nothing to improve or create transit friendly communities in the 905. I remember a Councillor from a 905 municipality railing against Rob MacIsaac about parking lots and how the traffic they attract destroyed her town. This isn’t just an issue for car-free, long-hairded bearded transit activists living in sight of the subway, two streetcar lines and four bus routes.
Stephen Cheung Says:
“The intention is to give the option to commuters who need to use the car a way to use public transit. And as I have mentioned up and down the board, charging parking for metropass users is the wrong way to go. No one wants to pay more to commute, whether it be through parking fees or increased TTC fares.”
Where do you get this sense of entitlement from? That having a metropass entitles you to park for FREE on TTC property? A metropass ONLY entitles you to ride on TTC public transit vehicles.
The TTC provided these parking lots with the intention “to give the option to commuters who need to use the car a way to use public transit” when these parking lots were first built,… and the TTC CHARGED A FEE FOR PARKING! Until about 10 years ago when the provincial government slapped some kind of fee on parking lots,… and the TTC realized they were paying more on this tax then they were getting in, so the TTC stopped charging parking lot fee and opened the lot for free to all metropass user only to avoid paying this fee.
If you’re going to use a parking lot you should be paying for it,… and you should be paying a market rate for it, without any subsidy. Why do you expect a free meal. If you don’t pay for your meal,… somebody have to,… the farmer and cooks don’t work for free. If you get free parking, somebody somewhere is really paying for your free parking,… because TTC (which is subsidized by Toronto tax payers) have to spend money and resources to maintain this free parking lot and consider opportunity cost of using this valuable land for something else or just outright selling the land,… in the end the TTC have less resources for other parts of the system,.. whether it be the buying more buses, streetcars, subways,… or maintaining and operating it’s current fleet in a safe manner.
The purpose of the TTC is to provide public transit for the residents of Toronto,…. not to provide free public parking for 905ers.
If you want free parking for your commute to downtown,… then I would suggest you drive to your local GO train station and park there then take GO Train to downtown,… FYI, they’re expanding GO Train free parking lot,… just for you.
If commuters want to drive to huge parking lots,… they should build the huge parking lots in 905 area, then have these commuters take public bus, streetcars or LRT to Subway station,… Wait, what am I thinking,… 905ers can’t take public buses, streetcars or LRT to subway station,… they’re too good for it! That’s why they insist on Yonge Subway extension to a GO Train station,… even though ridership will never justify a subway extension.
Stephen Cheung Says:
“Until transit advocates realize that car commuters have an equal share in the commuting pie, you can expect more resistance to measures such as charging for parking and more calls for more expressways. That latter statement is something you surely do not want. You simply cannot go around and say “screw the car drivers”.”
If you haven’t noticed,… Toronto city council tends to be a bit anti-car,… let me rephrase that,… our democratically elected officials in the City of Toronto tends to be a bit anti-car. And I personally, can’t wait until the day the City of Toronto starts charging tolls on city highways like the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway,… I would strongly suggest they charge toll to vehicles going downtown during AM rush and again going out of downtown during PM rush.
Stephen,… it’s not about transit advocates versus car commuters,…. I for one, have a car and I take public transit whenever I can as long as it’ll get me from point A to point B within a reasonable amount of time. The real issue is the entire GTA has grown and expanded while our arteries,… mainly public transit and road system for cars and trucks have not kept up to the growth. So now we have the GTA as one huge morbidly obese person,… and still growing every which way with urban sprawl,… and it’s arteries are badly clogged,… we’re talking too much fat, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, etc,… gridlock everywhere,… highway as parking lots, subways packed with sardines leaving passengers waiting on the platforms, buses and streetcars full of passengers with no room for anymore passengers,… At this point, we’re not even talking about how the GTA is supposed to be competitive against other major cities around the world,…. most of us have given up on that long ago. Right now, we’re talking about how the GTA can even function,… stay alive,… unclog its arteries.
Stephen,… if you live so far from work, that you need to drive to the subway station instead of taking a public transit bus and then take that subway from one end of the Yonge line to the other to get to work,… then you’re the fat that’s part of the problem, not the solution. You can cry all you want about loosing your free TTC parking at Finch Station,.. but when your new parking rate is still below market rate and still subsidized just like your TTC public transit ride by property taxpayers of a city you don’t live in,… just remember “Beggars can’t be choosers”.
LikeLike
The gall of motorists who behave like petulant brats and stamp their feet and threaten the worst if they don’t get others to pay for their parking is really too much. Odds are they’re the same folks who will rant and rave about THEIR tax money going for anything they may not directly use. Paying for your own parking is not about “screwing motorists”. It’s called pulling your own weight.
LikeLike
Stephen and Joseph: I don’t think either one of you see the point of argument for charging Metropass parking. Sure, you want access to cheap public transit, but you fail to realize that everyone else wants it too, especially in the 416. When you get to pay the same fare as everyone else, and you get free parking to boot, you have to wonder, is this fair to those in the city who end up with terrible service? Not only that, you guys end up on the subway whereas many other commuters have to waddle through sardine-packed buses and streetcars to get where they are going. If you want your free parking, what do the 416 residents get in return? Can we have our fares lowered instead? Give us a bone first and maybe you can have yours.
I’ll also point out that the users of these parking lots are owners of those cookie cutter homes out in the suburbs, many of them cheaper than the average property here in Toronto. Why should we be forced to subsidize your lifestyle by giving you free parking anyway? You wanted to move away from the city, now you have to deal with the consequences of your move (i.e. increased transportation costs). You can’t have it both ways.
Somehow, I think that BRT-maniacs and Free Parking hippes are all part of the same bush. Neither one has any real solution on how to deal with the bigger transit issue in the GTA, only half-baked suggestions that only serve to drag the TTC down with it (Viva being the biggest offender). Unless you guys get with the program and accept the idea that you NEED to pay more to get to the city, then I won’t hesitate to put up a Berlin Wall of a barrier to keep you guys out. Then perhaps Toronto can actually ENJOY its transit system.
LikeLike
Stephen Cheung Says:
“This is the kind of anti-car mentality that spawns new expressways. And articles like this. http://www.caranddriver.com/features/columns/c_d_staff/patrick_bedard/save_energy_take_the_car_column”
What that anti-transit article fails to mention is this,…
Click to access operatingstatistics2004.pdf
A picture speaks a thousand words,… See the “Key Facts” area of that TTC brouchure “Cars vs Transit: In the a.m. rush, it takes 50 cars to carry 61 commuters who can otherwise be comfortably seated on 1 ALRV streetcar heading downtown. (Average 1.20 automobile occupancy.)” Notice in the picture what 61 commuters in 50 cars gridlock looks like on a clogged downtown street,… vs the picture of one ALRV streetcar carrying the exact same number of commuters on the same downtown street,… street unclogged.
Gee,… which picture look like the commuter will get from point A to point B faster? The picture with 61 commuters in 50 cars gridlock on clogged downtown street OR the one with just one streetcar on unclogged street? Right now our arteries are clogged with too much fat, high cholesterol, high blood pressure,.. and the entire GTA is dying a slow painful death,… and we the people and our governments together need to do something about it now!
The easiest and most effective way to alter human behaviour,… is economically,… by charging taxes,… err, user fees,… as our various levels of governments have realize. Toll roads, parking fees, gas tax, etc,… gas and vehicle ownership in North America is only a fraction of what it is in most parts of Europe and Asia,… even American cities routinely charge road tolls.
LikeLike
Somehow I feel like a broken record here. I’ll say it again, for the umpteenth time since no one understands: I am not a 905 suburbanite. I live in Etobicoke. I work in Vaughan. For me, it is a simple jaunt up the 427 to my office. I cannot take transit to where I work because there are no viable transit options available. My wife meanwhile used to rely on TTC as she had a carpool that would drive to Kipling or Islington stations. Now she has turned in her metropass because with the new charges, it is not cost effective to park at the subway. Neither is it convenient to take local bus routes due to their unreliability (either a choice of a constantly crowded bus or a bus that doesn’t get to her stop on time). She and one other co-worker now carpools straight to her office where they have their own parking space paid for by their company.
What I am doing is speaking for those who are affected. And it is not those who are from the far flung reaches of suburbia. We’re talking about those who live close to the 416-905 border, but not close enough to access the TTC. Sure they could take other local transit, but is it really worth it to pay an extra fare to travel 1 km across the border? I used to be in that boat, and as far as I know, Joseph has that same problem. Not everyone lives close enough to a GO station, and not everyone works close to Union Station.
I agree with your point that the GTA is one morbidly obese person and we have too much “fat” in our transportation arteries. But the solution we need to open up more avenues so that people can get from A to B easily. By charging for parking, you are taking away one of those means. This is not the right way to solve the transit issue; if you want to take away the means, be sure you have an alternate. The TTC’s biggest mistake is starting to charge for parking when there are no alternatives available for those who need it. Therefore the only option is for those people who use those lots to drive instead. In some cases, the difference between driving downtown and paying for subway parking is so minimal that people would rather drive for the convenience. At that point, now you have to deal with more traffic on our roads. And when push comes to shove, and we need a new infrastructure project, there is a good chance it will be an expressway. Toronto doesn’t want it (and I respect them for that), but the powers that be in other areas do not agree.
As for the article that I posted, it is to show what kind of mentality that you DON’T want to piss off. I don’t necessarily support those views, but there are those who do, and you certainly do not want to get them going.
Once again, if you want to charge for parking you need an alternate incentive. Getting rid of the fare barrier would be one way of doing it. Don’t slam the door and think there won’t be anything wrong with it.
LikeLike
‘As for the article that I posted, it is to show what kind of mentality that you DON’T want to piss off. ”
Apparently, we should react in fear to the self-entitlement mindset of many motorists, under threat of an as yet unplanned, undefined, imaginary expressway. Be careful everyone, you don’t want to “get them going.” Give them free parking to keep them quiet.
Shameful.
There is ZERO chance of a new expressway being built into downtown in this city where the slaying of the Spadina Expressway dragon is part of civic lore.
Oh and anyone getting free parking at work should be taxed for it on their income tax.
LikeLike
Several other things, it is quite offensive to say that those who live far away and need to commute to get to work are part of the problem. Most of the time, they have no choice. Steve said it better than I could. And besides, are you in favour of uprooting a family each time a breadwinner takes a new job elsewhere? Let me guess, don’t take that job right? How about having to live closer to where one’s elderly parents live (like my wife’s)? Do we want them to move closer to where we work? This is not fantasyland and not everyone has easy options as you do.
Also, if you want to spew that carbon footprint stuff, maybe I should say that the TTC is a big offender as of right now. The RGS that is currently in place is running buses where there is no demand for them during obscure hours. And thus you have buses with no-one in it. Why is nobody taking the TTC to task for this oversight? I am now considering a fuel efficient diesel car to drive to and from work. This car spews half the carbon of similar cars and goes twice as long on a tank of diesel. So I am reducing my “carbon footprint”. In case you haven’t noticed, I find this “carbon footprint” stuff to be a load of BS. My goal is efficiency, whether commuting by car or by public transit. And not many people find it efficient to take public transit.
Finally, the figures you posted from the TTC are misleading. They assume an ALRV travelling downtown on an uncrowded street. When was the last time you saw that happening? Can’t think of one? Oh yeah that’s right, there is a lot of CONGESTION downtown these days. It’s no wonder why so many people lambaste the TTC for their poor reliability, long travel times and why they think TTC means “Take The Car”.
LikeLike
Charging for parking should be a way of rationing the use of parking lots (not raising funds). People who aren’t rich enough, or don’t value the time lost in traffic, will not park. That’s what congestion charges / lot charges are supposed to do.
The lots at Kipling are still full — the number of cars on the road hasn’t increased. Some people who drove are now parking, others who parked (like Stephen’s spouse) are now driving.
Let’s not confuse strategies to increase use of transit with strategies to change the types of people who use transit.
LikeLike