59 Carden St.

Changes afoot

Posted by Magda
Changes are coming to Carden Street, but nothing yet to the area around the convent.

It's a response to long-standing complaints, largely from Carden Street merchants, about a lack of parking.

It's how easy?

Posted by Magda
Some councillors suggested yesterday that instead of allowing overnight parking on city streets, the public be educated about the number to call when you want to park overnight on your street.

The number 837-PARK was bantied about. Derek McCaughan, director of operations, eventually corrected councillors -- it's actually 836-PARK.

Seems it's not that easy after all.

(They did, by the way, decide to allow overnight parking this summer as a pilot project. Read all about it tomorrow.)

Overnight parking allowed, for now

Posted by Magda
Council decided to try out all-night parking on city streets in the summer.

The cost is nominal, operations director Derek McCaughan said. But it will cost roughly $126,000 in lost revenue from parking tickets.

Councillor Christine Billings was unhappy about the cost. "If I wanted to spend $126,000, I would do it on yard waste cleanup," she said. "We're taking more money out of (the parking budget) yet we want to be building parkades -- not one, but two."

There was some discussion about how staff would be reallocated once parking bylaw officers aren't needed at night.

"2 a.m. to 6 a.m. is an idea time to enforce what I hope will be a very strong body rub parlour bylaw," Councillor Maggie Laidlaw quipped.

It's a pilot proejct running from May 1 to Nov. 1.

Who's parking where?

Posted by Magda
Parking staff keep detailed stats on how full parking garages and lots get. Here's a snapshot (in pdf form) of one week last January: Baker lot, Macdonell lot, Wilson lot, East parkade, West parkade. The busiest lot is the East parkade, which was on average 81 per cent occupied during the period checked by staff (10am-4pm). The least busy was the Wilson Street lot, which was 65 per cent occupied, on average.