On a spring morning in 2020, a sudden jarring silence fell followed shortly by the first seemingly tentative blast of a horn. On and on it went, hour after hour, as people tried to park and failed, then tried to escape but found they were trapped in the crushing oppression. As early as 8:05 a.m. the first cars were abandoned on the street. At 8:34 surveillance video recorded the first known case of “the madness” when Sarah Jane Smith, a well dressed young lady sporting an “I Heart Windermere” Gucci handbag, leapt snarling from her car, pulled a middle-aged man in scrubs, later identified as Tom Collins ER Nurse, from his SUV and ripped his throat out with her teeth.

Soon, it engulfed the neighbourhood. By 9:30 the first reported outbreaks in the downtown were recorded. In their high-rise office overlooking the carnage it is reported that senior members of the planning department broke into tears exclaiming, “My God, what have we done?” before attempting suicide with their desk staplers. That didn’t work out either.

“Parkageddon 2020” is only one of a number of possible scenarios. As extreme as it is, it points to our immediate need to grapple with the reality that the long term health and well-being of our residential and commercial areas depend on convenient and reliable accessibility to parking.

Consider today’s parking pressures. We are an old neighbourhood with small lots and homes pushing many to use their garage as storage. We have blocks of homes with no rear lanes. Much of our existing commercial buildings, including restaurants, operate out of buildings with almost no parking. We have an amazing concentration of churches and this creates a huge parking pressure. Then, there is the immense parking demand created by the Commonwealth Stadium, Downtown proper, the Alex and Glenrose hospital campus, and proximity to LRT and transit.

Now, consider just what we know is potentially coming: Arena and arena entertainment district, Royal Alberta Museum, Quarter’s development, Boyle Renaissance, Epcor Tower and Stationlands, possible high speed rail stop, and multiple large residential projects with commercial podiums.

We need a plan. We need a parking strategy. Planning needs to stop getting over excited at the prospect of shiny new baubles and start implementing an adequate parking standard. A building is only shiny and new for a few years, but bad planning and design have an impact for generations.

Factor in two other realities. The Quarters’ and Arena lands are massive surface parking lots. As awful and wasteful as surface parking is, people parking there will not just switch to cycling, transit, or trans-warping. They are used to driving and willing to park in “dodgy” but cheaper locations. Those willing to “park rough” are a small subset of all car commuters. So, when we do start showing real improvements many people may start thinking, “Hey, I’ll just park over there – it’s safe and cool.”

And now, here is the kicker. It seems City Transportation feels that new buildings don’t really need to meet normal parking requirements. Almost every project coming forward is grossly short on what would be conventionally expected. Envision what will happen if just a quarter of a 100 parking stall shortage occurred on your block.

We need a plan. We need a parking strategy. Planning needs to stop getting over excited at the prospect of shiny new baubles and start implementing an adequate parking standard. A building is only shiny and new for a few years, but bad planning and design have an impact for generations.

Oh, and by the way, we still don’t have an LRT stop being added in proximity to our residential or commercial areas. Two different LRT lines now, but no stop. Funny how that is, isn’t it? But more on that next month!