Good to see the parking meters go.
They are a pain.
One of the reasons I would not go downtown often was because of parking meters.

The removal of parking meters is not going to make the downtown more desirable. Who are we kidding? Two hours free parking? What the heck are you going to do in our downtown for two hours. If I have to go downtown, I only go when my husband can accompany me, and I only go when it's the only option. It's unfortunate...there are some neat little shops...but look around....yikes.

Yeah right, remove the meters, but increase the fines, nice move, city!
The costs of parking law enforcement will go down, and the revenue will probably go up, but one thing will remain the same;
downtown will still be avoided by many many shoppers. As if saving a quarter will bring the spending hordes back to the downtown, all the shopping has been allowed to develop in the west end, where the parking has always been free anyway!
metalman.

Seriously, we needed a study to tell us removing parking meters is a good idea? I could have given that idea to City Hall for free.

And what about the drunks and panhandlers?

There's no reason to go downtown after 5:00 p.m. or on Sunday because almost everything is closed. One of the reasons that Westgate has flourished is because it works better with people's schedules, and there's the bonus of not being asked for your spare change.

Let's stop wasting time and money on downtown. We've been beating this horse for 30 years.
Saving 25 cents isn't going to bring me downtown. Saving $20 isn't going to bring me downtown. I can't think of one reason I need to, or want to, go downtown for.

Our attitudes do make it tough on the small businesses that have to be downtown for the cheaper rent, but the city, et al. have allowed this problem to perpetuate. This downtown issue has been around a long time, more than thirty years, by my recollection. There have been all sorts of ideas, not all of them good, but other than a few benches and flagstones, not much has been done. They have allowed the major developments to flourish on the west side of the city, when some or dare I say all of it could have been done downtown. It would have taken a lot of work to assemble the land packages, but there were people around who wanted to do just that
(Cadillac/Fairview, for one) It probably should have started with Pine Centre mall, that complex should maybe have been located closer to downtown. It is easy to see this now, but 34 years ago, it would not have made as much sense because the downtown had not decayed to the extent it is now, it would have cost plenty to get the parcels of land together, and I am not sure we had the political will to get it done anyway, that kind of foresight is usually missing from our planners and politicians. Anyway, who could have predicted the way things have gone, with all the large stores coming to wee P.G.
metalman.

I can find lots of things to do downtown for 2 hrs. I shop downtown first and then only go elswhere if I can't find anything. I have never had any problems with the "drunks and panhandlers" even when I don't give them anything. My grandsons and I have even stopped and visited with them.

The only time that I felt threatend was up at Spruceland Shopping Centre.

When people say they won't go downtown because of the "street people" then you allow the "street people" to take over.

Create an environment where people will want to go downtown and the rest will take care of itself. This will likely never happen in PG because the political will is not there (or at least it hasn't been). Our leaders make deliberate decisions to take big projects outside of the downtown core (CN Centre anyone) and they also ignore the existing problems that continue to have a negative impact on that area of town (crime, air quality, unkept streets/buildings, etc.).

The downtown could be revitalized, but it needs some major work and a group of stubborn civic leaders that aren't willing to sabotage revitalization plans whenever someone comes before them with a pitch as to why their major project would be better off somewhere else.

"And what about the drunks and panhandlers?"

They are a bit more difficult to remove than parking meters.

** oops, did I say that? **

That was not me .... I'll have Ben look into it....

;-)

Metalman
Where would everyone park if all this bigbox developement was built downtown.
Downtown PG would look like a mini Vancouver with all it's joy's.

That's the easiest problem to solve. Build the structure a bit sturdier and park on the roof.

If you look at the aerial photographs of Pine Centre, Canadian Tire, WalMart, Costco, Home Depot, etc., those stores are large enough that between 80 to 100% of the parking they provide adjacent to the stores will fit on the roofs with ramps going up to the roofs.

Oakridge in Vancouver, for instance, has some rooftop parking.

With Smart Growth coming our way, it is time to start looking at what smart designers of a bygone era did who did not realize they one could litter the world with parking lots and create sprawlsville and kill the central place theory.

As the world turns. Stand still long enough and everything you have ever experienced in life will pass by you again .... including diapers .....

LOL

Perish the thought of adult diapers owlie one, but I like the idea of parking right on top of the shopping centre. Just gotta find another place for the hvac....
metalman.

HVAc is no big deal in a single box store. The units are in about a 90 foot square grid on top of WalMart for instance. That fits in quite nicely with a parking grid. Each unit would mean the loss of one space.

Google earth is a wonderful tool .... :-)

I'm guessing the cost of building a structure able to withstand parking on the roof is significantly higher than buying a piece of land for a parking lot. Not to mention the increased cost of insurance to insure such a structure should the thing fall in.

Owl your Vancouver example might be viable because real estate values are significantly higher than here. Plus there may have been other issues with acquiring the land for the mall.

As much as it sucks, it always comes down to dollars and cents.

Intuitively most people who are not into town planning, real estate, etc. would probably think as you do MrPG.

However, the reality is quite different.

I'll get you some info in a couple of hours.

in the meantime, for those who are interested in this sort of thing, all you have to do is go to the City's GIS map at
http://www.city.pg.bc.ca/pgmap roam around there a bit if you have not been to it, click on an aerial image from 2006 and locate some properties, click on "more" in the lower part and a nice little window comes up with assessments.

A teaser ....

Home Depot - 8.52 acres - $5million raw land - $5.7million improvements.

Reduce the land by 1/3 to asses it at $3.5 million, strenghten the structure of the roof with half that money, pocket the rest, and put less pressure on infrastructure since the city would not spread out as much.

Camp Plaza at Victoria and 10th - 3.44 acres - $3.0 million land - $1.9 million improvements .... this place does not belong in a downtown of a city. This place is land rich and building poor and ripe for imrpovements if this city ever moves.

The propety that Tim Hortons and the white spot are on is even worse.

The the HSB on corner of Victoria and 3rd - 0.39 acres - $499 thousand property - $7.6 million building. THAT is the ratio of building to land that a downtown property should look like.

People are sitting on property waiting for something to happen.

I've never seen a Home Depot, Walmart, Costco or Canadian Tire build in the last 15 years with the parking on the roof -- have you? Maybe they exist somewhere, but I know that's not typically the way the big box stores set themselves up.

I notice you didn't take into account the increased insurance cost of having a building with parking on the roof. Maybe it's hard to get insurance for that kind of structure.

As I recall parking on the roof at the Bay was a pain,especially when it was busy, like at Christmas time etc.
And besides,if they were doing that now,the place would no doubt be full of panhandlers.
I still think they need to start at Victoria St. with a line of D9 Cats and don't stop until they get to the river!
I agree with owl that we are land rich but building poor.
Tear those old eyesores down and start over, and perhaps the renewal will also change the general attitude towards downtown and the street people who appear to own it now!

1. I doubt that there is an increase in inusurance cost due to parking on a roof, other than the value of the building goes up, thus replacement value is more.

2. With a concrete deck, which a roof parking are is likely to have, the likelyhood of a roof fire, which is one of the most common fire origins when a building is being re-roofed, is actually reduced.

3. A concrete deck on a steel roof will act as a heat sink during a fire and such a roof structure combination will last longer in a fire than a deck with gypsum board on it (which is put there in part to act as a hit sink in a fire situation).

4. There was never any parking on the roof of the Bay. The parking is in a parkade structure adjacent to that buiulding.

5. People in PG have an aversion to parking in a parkade. The same as many people in PG do not know enough to let people in elevators off first, then get on them. Many simply do not know how to use an elevator or a parkade properly.

6. For those that do not realize it, the Parkwood shopping centre has rooftop parking - the portion of the parking at the Staples level over to the eastern edge of the parking is over the small retail outlets below and the portion at the upper entrance to the Bay which is just to the west of that entrance is also above the store below.

7. Since this is a town of several smaller escarpments and areas where differences in elevation can assist in removing the need for ramps and even the sensation that one is driving up to a rooftop, there are several areas where such opportunities exist.

8. As far as shopping centres not having elevated parking, let's call it, goes, that is essentially because it is the path of least resistance. In other words .... if they do it .... then I will do it.

Finally, just remember that the primary reason why we are seeing the type of groupings of shopping center pavilians we are, rather than in-door shopping malls, is that people do not like to walk the distance from the parking lot, several rows of parking away from an entrance, and then to their destination. They prefer destination shopping.

So, the downtown street has morphed from there to an indoor street surrounded by parking, to an outdoor parking lot with questionable interior circulation (Parkwood is an excellent example of lousy vehicular circulation) surrounded by building pods that are typically too far to walk to and have to be walked to in an exterior environment ... again a california design transplanted to the north.

I'd suspect the reason people have an aversion to parking in parkades is because they tend to be havens for petty thieves. The one is Parkwood is particularly bad.

Rooftop parking is one of those ideas that sounds good in theory but isn't very practical -- that's why you don't see it.