By Gazette Staff
May 28th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
Parking, it is a consistent and persistent problem for the city. Merchants want space for their staff, and residents want to be able to park their car when they are shopping or dining downtown.
The Burlington Downtown Business Association (BDBA) presented city Council with a petition signed by 60 people. The 60 signatures from the 400 plus members of the BDBA must have been disappointing. Especially given the notices that were sent out to the membership.
We, the undersigned, AGREE that public parking supply Downtown has not kept pace with development pressures.
New mobility initiatives designed to move patrons around our Downtown are welcomed, and in process, BUT parking is CRITICAL to the health of our business community, and it must be delivered now.
We support the BDBA’s demand to deliver NEW public parking by 2030. We STRONGLY encourage City Council to approve a plan that will deliver a new parking facility as a short-term priority.
The step the BDBA wanted taken was the approval of funding for a study that would determine where parking could be located east of Brant and who would provide the space.
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May to October seasonal patios are also a factor. Increased traffic congestion due to lane reductions and parking spaces replaced with pedestrian walkways and patio seating.
It’s time for everybody (the BDBA, retailers, Council, staff and residents) to change their thought process. The solution to the parking problem does lay in the downtown core. Building another garage parking structure to attract more vehicles to downtown is complete lunacy. That just goes contrary to what Council and the City have been trying to encourage and achieve, which is less traffic congestion in the downtown and more use of transit options. We need to find a different and better way to attract people to the downtown core retail area.
We need to look at Europe, the UK and many North American cities which have pedestrianized their downtown core areas. Whilst I would love the downtown area to be pedestrianized (including the area of Lakeshore Road so that Spencer Smith Park became an integral part of the downtown core) I know that is a pipe dream at present.
Attracting vehicles to the downtown core as I said is complete lunacy.
Those European cities with pedestrianized downtowns provide a no charge convenient and frequent shuttle service from remote parking lots. Burlington should in my opinion consider doing the same. A shuttle service could run connecting Mapleview Mall, Burlington Go, Burlington Center, Appleby Go, and the downtown core. The public could use the bus services or the parking lots at the two stations and the malls and then hop on the shuttle. This would enhance retail traffic at the two malls and in the downtown. It would also encourage the use of the transit system.
This is one possible solution. A solution I favour. There maybe other solutions which do not include enticing more vehicles into the downtown area. City staff in particular needs to be more open-minded and think outside of their own self-imposed box!
If the condo developers would be required to provide enough parking spaces for their residents then their residents wouldn’t have to buy monthly parking passes in the city lots, lots that all the residents of Burlington and commercial operations pay for through their taxes. We pay for the lots but find coming downtown to support the restaurants and businesses increasingly challenging.
I have asked but cannot get an answer to, is there a limit to the number of monthly passes sold to the condo residents in the municipal lots that cannot get a parking space in their building? Is it unlimited or a percentage of the lot?
If this new parking garage is built how will that help businesses if the lot will be filled with monthly parking passes of the new condo residents? It seems less and less parking is available in the new condo buildings for their residents. Less and less parking but more and more condos.
Seems “The pigeons are coming home to roost.”
Going into the downtown area is very difficult. Parking and traffic congestion. My family has given up going into the downtown core or attemting to traverse it, to get to restaurants we would frequent a couple of years ago.
Your publication is great! I wish Ottawa had something like this. My one comment of the state of diminishing parking and roadway servicing: Think of 15 minute cities….Edmonton and Calgary apparently.