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Winnipeg Free Press > Opinion > The View from the West > Parking is the problem, not answer

The View from the West

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Parking is the problem, not answer

By: Robert Galston

27/11/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 7

Headed south down Waterfront Drive on an unseasonably warm November afternoon, the row of new condo buildings lining the winding roadway met my eye.

Architecturally, none of these buildings are notable for anything but average attempts at cartoonish "heritage" design, but taken together, perhaps with eyes squinted a little bit, they gave a definitive form to a neighbourhood that does not fade out as it approaches the Red River, but is built up right to its edge.

Behind Waterfront Drive could be seen the massing of century-old warehouses and offices of the Exchange District east of Main, and still beyond them, the quartet of post-war skyscrapers that stand at the four corners of Portage and Main.

From this view, one gets the impression that while Winnipeg is not a rich city of highrises and glass, it is, in its modesty and pragmatism, a low-rise but compact and urban city.

But to look closer, down the avenues that make up the East Exchange, one sees a neighbourhood threatened by a gradually hollowing destruction, and that the new urbanity of Waterfront Drive could end up being only a false front.

Sport Manitoba is undergoing redevelopment of the Smart Bag Company building on the corner of Pacific and Lily Street. Actually two separate buildings, the larger section built in 1913 is being renovated for office use, while the oldest section, dating back to 1884, will be demolished for a parkade, possibly with a gymnasium built on the top level.

On Lombard Avenue, the Grain Exchange Annex built in 1920 has a date with the wrecking ball in order to create a bigger loading dock. On a vacant lot next door, another parkade is planned.

In the vicinity of James Avenue, city planners are looking at the construction of a parkade for 450 cars, to be operated by the Winnipeg Parking Authority.

That planners would exert any energy in finding the best place for the publicly owned parking authority to build a massive parkade, is outdated and absurd. More than 50 years of destruction in the name of parking has been a driving force in creating such a problematic downtown. Winnipeg planners should be working to counter the effects of suburbanization, not to amplify them.

Not only counter-productive, a wave of new parkades in the East Exchange is redundant. Ostensibly planned in response to new residences, every residential unit on Waterfront and elsewhere in the East Exchange already has at least one (usually two) underground parking spots available on-site. The Market Avenue theatres do not need new facilities either, since the Civic Centre parkade and curb-side spots easily meet the demand on show nights.

Still, everyone from Mayor Sam Katz to the anonymous armchair urbanists that populate the city's web forums cheer for more parkades. Not only because they are visually preferable to the many surface parking lots downtown, but because the construction of the former supposedly cancels the existence of the latter.

If a five-level parkade is built, the theory goes, five surrounding surface parking lots will be eliminated by being built upon by a mixed-use development (that was lured to the area by the great parking facilities). Sounds nice, but how has it worked in downtown Winnipeg so far?

In recent decades, the East Exchange has been seen as downtown's leading potentially desirable residential neighbourhood. Yet so little of what is being planned and developed there has any sense of actual livability. No one but car-bound misanthropes would want to live in a neighbourhood where parkades are a dominant feature of the landscape, no matter how gussied up in heritage motifs they are.

In 1959, Toronto civil engineer Norman D. Wilson wrote in a report on transit in Winnipeg, that "(t)he dead storage of motor vehicles within the downtown area adds nothing to the attractiveness of its appearance, and detracts from its overall business utility."

If storing vehicles for office employees and theatre-goers, on an increasingly over-saturated supply of parkades, is a "fact of life" in the East Exchange, then Winnipeg should drop the pretence of wanting a strong residential population and busy sidewalks there.

It should instead publicly acknowledge that sparse and discontinuous streetscapes, inefficient land uses, fewer heritage buildings, and a whole lot more dullness continues to be what is wanted for the East Exchange District. We're already on our way toward that end.

Robert Galston is a Winnipeg

writer and Point Douglas resident.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 27, 2009 A15

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7 Commentscomment icon

I agree with Galston.

We need to stop trying to attract suburban visitors, and start trying to attract downtown residents.

There is plenty of parking. We don't need more. What we need is a downtown where people WANT to LIVE. Where they're excited to live. I dunno about you, but parkade walls don't exactly make me wanna grab a coffee and go sit out on the street enjoying life.

Our downtown needs to become our city's living room. I know, we're currently about as far from that as possible. But that is what we need to move towards if we want to get out of the mess we're in, and parking will not get us there.

If you build for traffic and parking, that's what you'll get.

More traffic and parking.

It's not utopian idealism, it's good urban planning.

And it's not new. Look at the fabulous cities of all sizes in Europe.
Amsterdam, for example is an urban city in a very cold climate.

Closer to home: look at Portland, Boston, or Montreal.

Portland did something revolutionary (by American standards):
they exchanged road infrastructure dollars for light rail dollars.

Make it harder to drive and easier to take transit.

Yes, it's very hard to get downtown by bus when you live in the suburbs -- but Park n' Ride lots have potential to solve this problem. Think outside the box.
And there is currently too much parking available, as other commenters pointed out already. It's not like the suburbanites are suffering.

Some urban downtowns in northern Europe even limit or completely eliminate vehicular traffic in the downtown.

Places that are good for driving are bad for pedestrians.
(think: Kenaston at McGillvary)

Conversely, places that are annoying to drive/park in are vibrant, pedestrian communities.
(think: Osborne Village or Corydon ave).

You have to prioritize.
Who is the downtown for? People? ...Or cars?


If you we do what we've done, we'll get what we've got.
Time to eschew the car-centric mindset and think progressively.
Time for a change.

Right on.

After 6PM in downtown Winnipeg there is an absurd amount of parking, lot after lot is empty, yet no people. How anyone could be dim enough to think that a new parkade will solve this issue is beyond me.

Corydon is the best place in the city all summer long, parking is difficult, but the sidewalks are packed. Nothing but residences, and businesses, on a well planned street. With thousands of people shopping and socializing.

@Joe, the author said nothing about "no-one should drive cars", that is simply your strawman. Try visiting downtown on the weekend, or post 5PM, you could park a Super Bowl crowd.

Well the FP must be commended for not knowing where it’s at, and falling in love with some sort of sense of giving a voice to the underdog who should not even be in the fight.

Any 101 student will tell you that parking and downtown development and revitalization goes hand in hand. Only in this city would a paper publish such as poetic column full of crap and void of any realistic assumptions based on market and humanistic realties.

This “utopian” approach that “no-one should drive cars” is as idiotic and Mr. Galston needs to get a grip on how to create real change. He needs to step outside of the theory and place himself smack dab in reality, marry the two and then speak up. Robert, please do not speak up from a position of not knowing and not wanting to learn. It makes you look like an ugly little boy stuck in university.

The Old Birts building proposed conversion to affordable condos failed a few years ago because - 1. No one wanted to buy them because there was no parking. 2.) The city was not able to help by either building a public parkade in the vicinity or help him build parking, so that the prices did not come in over $250,000 per unit making the project unfeasible.

This Editorial section does nothing in shaping the opinions of Winnipeggers.

Remember when the city decided not to build a second parkade at the forks (on the land behind the hotel that is there now)? People said we shouldn't build it so that more people will take transit to the forks instead. In Summer it is nearly impossible to find parking at the forks and I hardly go there anymore for that reason. Let's not make the same mistakes elsewhere. We need a good place for visitors to park or else they will just stay away or go elsewhere.

I think all development downtown is superficial and insincere. It's done at the prompting of a desire to perceive opportunity, not of genuine opportunity itself.

It seems these developments are facilitated by favoritism and exclusive consideration. Very deep pockets tend to be involved and anything going on is the result of some contrived attempt to make a quick buck. There's no commitment.

There's still no light rail in Winnipeg and transit is still prohibitively expensive to people who also own vehicles. The fact that we have people advocating some fad-motivated subway system doesn't help either as it divides our efforts.

I don't know anyone in these condominiums and I certainly couldn't afford one myself. If I lived in one, my family could never visit me because there's nowhere for them to park.
What is there that's appealing? Aside from ones that have been there for years already, businesses from Waterfront all the way to Isabel are largely forgettable.

Our downtown is a hatchet job because it isn't being done in such a way that everyone can participate. Through that, it mirrors of the lack of diversity in its growth.

Sure speakupwinnipeg solicits input, but nobody is actually getting access to contribute the new ideas. Contributions are only for the rich as only the wealthy and connected can cross the barriers.
And so, as long as these unimaginative deep pockets are the only ones with access to downtown development, so too will the ideas be unimaginative

I find your argument funny. You want more people to come downtown yet you don't want them to bring their cars. Applaudable but unrealistic. If you live in the suburbs then our transit system sucks. I can drive to downtown in 15 minutes but a bus takes 45 and I have a 10 minute walk to the bus stop.

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