By Pepper Parr
July 14, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
Citizens of the city are finally getting used to the idea of sharing their opinions – at least on questions that matter to them – and if there is a question that matters to people in this city it is – parking
Between April 24 and May 7, 2015, more than 1040 residents completed the online questions about parking and sharing their comments.
The public input has been incorporated into a staff report that will be presented to the Development and Infrastructure Committee on Monday, Sept. 14, 2015 and the Burlington City Council meeting on Monday, Sept. 28, 2015.
What did the public have to say about parking in this city? Interesting responses – looks like paid overnight parking is going to take place in the eastern side of the city.
Here are the result of the questionnaire:
The public opinion survey response on the question of on street parking and whether or not it should be paid for and if so how much got the highest response ever for an Insight survey.
The parking survey response by ward – tells us where the problems are.
A third of the households are more than two car families – are these transit opportunities?
Most people seem to be able to park there cars in their driveways – so what’s the problem?
For the 238 out of the 1048 who completed the survey people – they seem to be evenly divided on where cars should be parked if they don’t fit into the driveway.
Slightly more than half will accept the idea of permit parking.
If there is on-street parking at night – most know when they want it to take place
This questions appears to have allowed people to choose more than one option – needs follow up
The city was taking no chances on being misunderstood – pictures showing just what each definition meant were provided.
Now for the crunch question: How much would you pay to park on the street ?
Reactions shift when the price changes – even though the changes are minimal.
The 60% of the people who responded to the pricing questions were split on whether or not they were reasonable. Expect some noisy delegations on this question when it gets to Council
A no cost option was seen as unreasonable by some – interesting.
What was really clear was this: people do not want to pay for parking if they are not actually on the street.
On street parking permits might make the city some money, but I bet all that money will be spent again dealing with snow clearing issues when people leave their cars on the street during storms. Because knowing that there’s on street parking people will buy cars they don’t have room for, and then have no where to put them during snow storms.
My street already has enough problems with snow clearing, the last thing we need to do it make it even harder for the plow operators to do a decent job!
Regarding Chris Walker’s comments:
The thing that amazes me is the constant way the city changes it’s story meeting to meeting. Apparently we have no need for more road capacity because “alternatives” will be available. The second you try and make “alternatives” more attractive suddenly there is no money and no public support for it.
Similarly we are approving 2 plus bedroom town house with one parking space because people will no longer need to park multiple cars. Then all of the sudden we need to turn streets into parking lots because people don’t have enough parking. Well then stop approving new developments without enough parking.
I agree with Greg above.
I would add that I purchased my home knowing the parking I required (and paid more for it). If someone buys a home that doesn’t have enough parking they should adapt, not push this on everyone else. If you can’t fit your cars in your driveway get rid of a car or get a bigger driveway. Having cars on the street all the time changes a community significantly.
People should stop buying new builds that don’t have enough parking for their vehicles. Then maybe the developers will add more parking.
Interesting that the City’s survey summary does not include general comments submitted as part of the survey such as paid parking being in conflict with encouraging active transportation e.g. Making bicycling and transit more challenging by restricting effective street widths. Paid street parking really encourages car use as opposed to much healthier and civilized active transportation.
On most streets it’s rare to have that many cars on the street, but if you do this most streets will be jammed with them over time. Once people have cars in front of there house most of time kids and alternate cars will be directed to park on the street as well. It can only produce a big increase in vehicles in the area.
Being in Aldershot where lots of the streets have no sidewalk having cars lined up on the street presents a safety hazard – particularly in winter. Your going to have piles of slush and snow piled up against cars with school kids picking through trying to walk to school.
If newer areas have layby areas I can see a place for it. In general cramming the streets of Burlington with an endless lines of cars is not my preference. If developers are asking $30,000 for a parking space and you can rent one from the city for 100 years at that price – people are going to pile them on the street. Obviously compounded by the cities relaxing the amount of parking new developments should have.
Agree with you completely…if developers are able to charge that much for a parking space, then it would seem that ($30K) is close to the relative value of a parking space. If we don’t want to end up with city streets looking like car storage lots, do we need to charge a similar price for convenient on-street parking? Forcing developers to build additional parking just provides a barrier to development, and ultimately leads to more ridiculous proposals like the ADI building on Lakeshore in order to recoup the high costs of providing the required underground parking spaces for infill developments.
I agree with Taxed to Death above. And John has a point but may agree to pay.
I would like to know what the rationale for paid parking is.
I have never heard about it as a pressing issue.
If you don’t have a sidewalk, boulevard or a layby there would no option but to pay, leaving us with different by laws for different areas of the city.
The street, boulevard, layby and sidewalk are all city property and paid parking if allowed, should be the same for all.
Treating tax payers differently base on available amenities is a very slippery slope.
Interesting note, the “on the boulevard” photo shows the city vehicle facing the wrong direction. I believe that is also a by law.
Why should I have to pay to park on a street that my taxes paid to build and maintain? Its another tax grab as far as I’m concerned
Why should my taxes have to pay to build and maintain a road just for you to store your cars? If you don’t have a place to store your vehicles on your own property, why can’t you go to a storage facility? Is it fair that the public has to subsidize that?