Toronto’s cheap and ample parking has been good for business. Here’s why that may be about to change

Thestar.ca
Oct. 11, 2023

The little black gadgets embedded in the pavement on Spadina Avenue may not look like much, but they could be early signs of a parking revolution.

There are three dozen of the devices between Dundas and College Streets, and while they resemble oversized hockey pucks, they’re sensors the Toronto Parking Authority has installed as part of a pilot project to collect real-time occupancy data about its on-street spaces.

By giving the city a better understanding of how many drivers are using the spots and when, such devices could become a powerful tool in Toronto’s attempts to answer a critical question: what’s the right price to put on a parking space?

This fall, Toronto will launch consultations on a citywide parking strategy that could lead to changes in how much real estate the city devotes to stationary vehicles, and how much drivers pay for it.

The exercise is part of a global trend that has urban centres around the world reconsidering decades-old planning orthodoxy that dictates cities need ample and cheap parking in order to thrive. Proponents of the new philosophy argue that reducing the amount of low-cost parking frees up street space for other public uses, reduces traffic and helps meet climate targets. But any proposal to make parking less readily available and more expensive is sure to provoke pushback from drivers already facing higher costs and business owners struggling to recover from the pandemic.

Parking about to undergo a ‘sea change’
Patrick Siegman, a San Francisco-based transportation planner, said there’s a sea change underway in how cities think about parking. “I have never seen anything like it” in 30 years in the field, he said. “Parking reform is really snowballing.”

In the mid-20th century, in response to the boom in private automobile ownership, North American cities adopted car-focused policies that required every new building to include a minimum number of parking spaces, and provided free or low-cost spots on busy commercial streets.

But today’s planners believe that approach has come with huge costs: oceans of available asphalt encourage people to drive instead of using more sustainable modes like public transit, which has led to brutal gridlock, stifled productivity and air filled with harmful emissions.

“We can hide the cost of parking … but we really can’t make it go away,” Siegman said.

Some cities have raised parking rates
In the past decade, cities like Seattle and Edmonton have scrapped parking minimums, and there’s growing appetite to adjust parking rates to reduce reliance on cars. That means imposing higher prices in busy areas, while maintaining lower rates on disused blocks to more evenly distribute traffic.

Siegman said the goal should be prices that result in one or two open spaces on every block, which cuts down on drivers “cruising” for an empty spot, and the increased parking revenue should be reinvested in local infrastructure.

After the city of Berkeley in California implemented this kind of “demand-based” pricing, it reduced vehicle kilometres travelled in its downtown by more than one million per year, Siegman said.

There’s evidence that in general Toronto’s parking prices have been set too low. The parking authority reported earlier this year that prices at its 20,000 on-street spaces, which maxed out at $5 an hour, were 41 per cent lower than North American peer cities.

Toronto parking may be due for fee increase
In 2022, roughly one-quarter of the parking authority’s 250 off-street lots had peak weekday occupancy rates of at least 85 per cent, the level at which a facility is considered overcapacity and a candidate for higher prices. Rates at most off-street lots range from about $1 to $4 per half-hour.

Jeff Dea, vice-president of business development at the Toronto Parking Authority, said the agency’s approach is to set prices that are reasonable but high enough to discourage long-term stays, as frequent turnover allows more people to use the spot and shop at local businesses.

The parking authority typically reviews prices annually at off-street lots and every three years at on-street spots, but because of the pandemic, on-street rates haven’t been increased since 2017. Dea acknowledged rates are now “a little bit low” and the agency will recommend “modest” on-street raises to its board in November. But “we’re not looking at dramatic increases,” he said.

It’s too early to say whether the citywide parking strategy, which is being led by Toronto’s transportation division, will result in more significant price hikes. Staff aren’t expected to make final recommendations until the end of next year, and stress that they have yet to reach any conclusions.

Toronto parking plays key climate role
But a 2022 city report about the strategy echoed the language of the parking revolution, promising that “innovative solutions will be proposed and long-standing ways of managing the parking system will be challenged.” It noted the clear link between “underpriced and abundant parking” and travel behaviour, and said reforming Toronto’s parking system could play a big role in meeting emission reduction targets under the city’s TransformTO plan.

Transportation is estimated to account for more than one-third of Toronto’s greenhouse gas emissions, with private vehicles responsible for about 73 per cent of that.

Barbara Gray, general manager of transportation services, said in addition to addressing climate goals, the strategy is a response to COVID-19 developments like the CaféTO patio program and the growth of curbside retail sales, which have increased demand on limited curb space and spurred a rethink of how streets should function.

Curb space is in such high demand, “it’s the belle of the ball,” in transportation circles, Gray said.

Parking review requires co-ordination
The review, which will be data-driven and require co-ordination between Toronto’s economic development and city planning divisions, its real estate agency and myriad other agencies like the TTC, will consider adjustments to the use of curbside space and off-street parking facilities, the impact of new tech like electric vehicles and car-share apps, and the residential permit system.

Recognizing that parking can be a hot-button issue, Gray said the city won’t impose changes without extensive consultation.

“I think people are going to become very engaged and we’re going to hear a lot of feedback. And so we don’t want to rush that part,” she said.

Giles Gherson, president and CEO of the Toronto Region Board of Trade, is among those urging caution. He said the city’s underdeveloped transit system means many residents have little choice but to drive into downtown, and they’re already contending with high gas prices and other rising costs. As the city struggles to attract people back to the core, he fears making parking more expensive would keep people at home and hurt Toronto’s economic recovery.

“The question is, do you want to add another burden at this point?” he asked.

But Coun. Dianne Saxe (Ward 11, University-Rosedale) doesn’t think the city is moving fast enough. She said Toronto’s parking rates can make it less expensive for a family to drive to a destination than take transit, and the city urgently needs to change that to meet climate targets that rely on reducing the use of cars for short trips.

“We have to make it faster, easier, more convenient, cheaper to walk and cycle and take the TTC (and other sustainable modes) instead of driving, or we’re not going to achieve the goals that we have,” said Saxe, the former environmental commissioner of Ontario.

Toronto begins updating parking fees
Toronto has already taken some steps in parking reform. Most significantly, in 2021 council voted to scrap most minimum parking requirements for new developments. Last month it opened the door to higher prices by lifting the $5-an-hour cap on the parking authority’s on-street spaces.

Mehdi Nourinejad, an assistant professor in York University’s civil engineering department, said there’s ample rationale to increase Toronto’s “outdated” prices, especially at “premium” on-street spots. He’s done research for the city and believes Toronto is interested in exploring dynamic pricing, under which rates would be adjusted regularly in response to demand.

In 2017, San Francisco approved a data-driven model that updates rates on a quarterly basis, block by block. If occupancy on a block is 80 per cent or higher, the rate goes up 25 cents, while if it’s 60 per cent or lower it decreases by the same amount.

Nourinejad said increases under such a system don’t have to be dramatic -- even a difference of one dollar “can have significant impact.” But to implement a sophisticated demand-based system here, Toronto would need a reliable way to determine occupancy at its spaces, which is particularly challenging in on-street spots that lack gates and other infrastructure found in off-street lots.

That’s where the sensors on Spadina come in. Even with that modest technological development, however, the Toronto Parking Authority is still years away from being able to regularly adjust its prices in response to demand or even simpler factors like time of day.

The parking authority’s Dea said the agency’s 2,700 parking machines are 20 to 25 years old, and changing rates requires updating each meter’s firmware. That makes any price hike labour intensive, time-consuming and expensive.

The agency is rolling out 225 machines that will allow prices to be changed remotely, but Dea said citywide fine tuning is “just not possible with the current equipment.”