Comment 114980

By John Neary (registered) | Posted November 20, 2015 at 10:21:23 in reply to Comment 114970

Well, I'll acknowledge that it's more complicated than I indicated in my earlier comment.

I take Jason's point about the problems with parking pads. The other option is to reallocate the parking lane to a wider sidewalk on one side and a physical buffer for the bike lane on the other side, either or both of which might permit tree planting. The tradeoff would be the pressure to install parking pads, which might make the global outcome worse, particularly if you end up with curb cuts along the entire length of the cycle track like on Cannon.

The conflict between local demand for on-street parking and other road uses is real, however, and it can lead to some pretty silly outcomes (e.g. residents opposing infill development projects because of the pressure that will result on surface parking.) When shortages occur (as is already the case in some downtown areas, if not along Aberdeen), parking pricing is the best way to allocate the scarce resource.

I'll freely acknowledge that when I was involved in a project to push for a similar redesign of Mary Street (where I live) last year, we deliberately didn't touch the existing allocation of street space to parking, because that's the easiest way to get neighbours upset about a street redesign.

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