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Originally Posted by Bunk
Wait a sec - but where are we talking about? Parking is only expensive in the downtown core - during the day, during the week.
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So basically parking is high only during the times and days when people actually need to do stuff. Excellent.
My main contention is not that prices are high (I can understand the reasoning), it's that they are ridiculously high considering the circumstances and alternatives. Even during peak times, how can you really justify parking in Calgary costing more than San Francisco, Boston or Toronto, and barely behind NY? Cities that are more densely populated, and have more forces working to raise prices. A lot of those place are forced up by a combination of scarcity, geographic barriers and economic forces. Calgary's high prices seem much more self-imposed by the city (it's still easy to find parking here, as long as you are willing to pay). I don't necessarily disagree with the philosophy, I just think they went a too ape####, too fast. What happens when we actually reach the density of those cities? Are we going to make London look cheap?
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The problem we have with transit is that other kinds of trips - non-peak times, points from outside the core to other places outside the core.
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Yeah, thats definitely a big issue. The Train/Bus network is relatively good if you work downtown and live in the suburbs. But if you live in the inner city, and have to do 3 separate things in the downtown area and need to hop around, things do still blow. I often have to run errands around the inner city, and while I prefer to walk, most of the time it's just not efficient if you have multiple destinations to hit, so you pretty much have to drive.
I'm also looking forward to the day when the city starts rewarding people who live in the inner city a little more. I know it always comes down to money, but at some point, I'd love for neighborhoods to get a more reasonable share of what they put in to the coffers (kind of like how Albertans always say they put in more than they get back nationally). If we're paying higher property taxes (mine went up by about 20%), I'd like to think it's not just going towards placating some schmuck in Silverado who want his street cleared of snow every 30 minutes. Mo bike paths, mo street cars, mo frequent busses!