trajano's Journal: Remove parallel parking spots

Just had this idea while I was driving down to work the other day. I noticed there were many places in Toronto where people parallel park.

One of the things that happen is when people use these spots, it reduces the number of lanes by one. So a 3 lane spot like Bloor and Church will reduce to one lane because one lane is for the parking and the other lane is used up by the parker. In Bayview around Lawrence and Eglington I think. They have two lane roads and when people park it effectively reduces the number of lanes to zero.

Sometimes some people parallel park improperly and take up more room on the road than necessary or they have large vehicles in the first place. Personally I know I do not parallel park too well so I avoid it when I can.

My suggestion is to remove parallel parking from "commercial" streets. Residential streets I would agree is still okay, because you'd want your guests to park close to you. However, residents must own a garage to park their own vehicles.

So what would happen if we remove parallel parking on commercial streets?

Well traffic on those streets will move smoother because there are more lanes.

But what about those stores that will lose customers because clients can't park near them? Well that is just "bad" location and planning in their part. However, read on as I will explain how this is will be offset.

Toronto will lose money from parking fees. However, people will pay more for the better parking spots. Toronto will save money from the maintenance of the parking meters.

This will increase TTC ridership because its will be more expensive to park downtown. This will increase TTC services, therefore will offset the lack of people going to Toronto by car instead will increase the number of people going to Toronto by transit. The existing parallel parking lanes can be converted to bus lanes as well to smooth out traffic.

Another side effect of this will be a bit more distribution of people to non-core areas. Since there is more flow of traffic, people will move more freely. So the Greater Toronto area will benefit more.

Having parallel parking lanes on city roads is just poor municipal planning. (Just like saying 3 lanes is good enough on a highway namely DVP). Parallel parking should be used as a last resort not a norm.