Civic parking garage closure is tip of the iceberg

On a Friday afternoon in August, the City of Winnipeg abruptly closed its parking structure on Princess Street. The parkade, built in 1966, was deemed unsafe after city engineers found concrete debris falling inside.

Unfortunately, the Civic Centre Parkade is not the only parking structure that may leave motorists worried. Many car parks in the city suffer exposed frames, rust, and crumbling concrete -- all of which risk the safety of drivers and passing pedestrians.

The Civic Centre closure has sparked debate among Winnipeggers regarding the upkeep of the various garages in the city, and has raised the question of just who is responsible for ensuring they are well-maintained. While city-owned parking garages are regularly inspected, some citizens have suggested privately held structures -- often as decrepit as their public counterparts -- should be similarly examined on a frequent basis.

Currently, parkades are treated like other commercial buildings; city engineers do not look them over unless work is being done or a complaint has been raised. As in municipalities across the country, there is no requirement forcing owners to have their buildings examined regularly, nor does the city have the staff to periodically inspect all private structures. It is expected property owners will ensure their buildings are kept in good order.

Advocates of more regular inspection, however, argue parking structures ought to be placed in the same category as businesses in, say, the transportation industry. By law, limousines, taxicabs, and trucks must be examined at least once a year, and are regulated by the Manitoba Taxicab Board, the Motor Transport Board, and other agencies.

Implementing a system of inspections by city inspectors, not unlike what operators in the food services sector go through, would require funding to pay for staff -- raised either through higher taxes or by diverting money from elsewhere.

Alternatively, the responsibility to find a qualified engineer to perform the inspection could fall to the owners themselves. There is certainly precedent for this, as operators in the transportation sector take their vehicles to a private mechanic. Yet, this may leave motorists disgruntled if the cost of parking were to increase to pay for the government-mandated assessments.

Of course, citizens may well prove happy to pay, either through taxation or higher parking costs, if it means a greater peace of mind.

More broadly, however, the closure of this parkade raises the question of how affordable our city might ultimately be. With a municipal government struggling to deal with the worst per-capita infrastructure deficit in the country -- currently more than $3 billion and projected to reach $7.4 billion in the next decade -- and public and private property across Winnipeg quite literally falling apart, it might be wise to consider if we can truly afford further 'business-as-usual' urban growth.

The municipal government's latest planning document, Our Winnipeg, mostly emphasizes qualitative goals of increasing greenfield development on the edge of the city. It is worth asking whether it would be more responsible to instead promote a greater balance between outward expansion and the revitalization of existing communities.

After all, studies have found the public infrastructure cost of a house in a new suburb is 22 times higher than one constructed in an existing neighbourhood, because of the need to put in items such as new roads and service lines. The cost of sprawl is then only compounded once construction is complete, as fewer citizens must foot the bill for the upkeep of more streets, sewage systems, and other public amenities.

With an urban density of 1,400 people per square kilometre, Winnipeg is one of the more sprawling large cities in the country. Aiming for a density closer to Ottawa's 1,700, for example, or Montreal's 1,850 -- hardly crowded urban areas -- would allow more citizens to pay for less required infrastructure.

Obviously, pursuing greater urban intensification is a long-term endeavour, but Winnipeg would not be alone in moving in this direction. Ontario's Places to Grow Plan, for example, mandates 40 per cent of all new development must be within the built-up area by 2015, while Calgary also has specific targets for increasing densification.

With the C.D. Howe Institute recently reporting that the ongoing infrastructure costs of more efficient communities can be up to 70 per cent lower than suburbs, establishing similar objectives here would leave Winnipeggers better able to pay for the maintenance -- and inspectors -- required for a safe and attractive hometown.

If bumping down potholed Princess Street past the shuttered Civic Centre Parkade is any indication, that kind of development may be needed here more than just about anywhere else.

Benjamin Gillies is a political economy graduate from the University of Manitoba, where he focused on urban development and energy policy. He works as a consultant in Winnipeg.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 12, 2012 A7