University Innovation Quarter | ?m | ?s | University of Calgary Properties Group

[CBBarnett]

I also wonder how many of the cars at the park and ride lot are actually university students who are parking and walking to campus. With their u-pass, they would technically be allowed to park there, even if they don't actually ride the train.

That's been my experience attending U of C many years ago, it was very popular for students to use Brentwood for parking and walk over and save money for on-campus parking or ride the LRT just one-stop. Enforcement was non-existent at the time. I am sure there are similar issues at other stations in the system.

This kind of thing at Brentwood is only a small symptom on a bigger, more systematic problem with the park-and-ride policies. At the high-level park-and-ride policy elevates Transit's attention of a single, inefficient tool (free and reserved parking capacity) above others that are far more transit-aligned (transit-oriented development, feeder bus network, sidewalk capacity, local pathway connectivity).

I'd like to see the park-and-ride policy be substantially reformed, essentially get Transit out of the parking business and back into the transit business:

• Remove the current policy's "target" of 15% (I think) of peak-trips by park-and-ride users. Totally perverse as it triggers the "need" for huge new parking lots at every station that never goes away. We actually should want a "maximum" park-and-ride trips, and a target of 100% of peak-trips made by walking, cycling and feeder routes.
• Removal all parking minimums for any development within station areas. Removal parking replacement policies where any development of a park-and-ride site has to replace the stalls 1-to-1, regardless on if they are needed or not. Totally stunts TOD economics and makes zero sense.
• Full cost recovery on all parking stalls by the drivers that use that specific station. If a station can't generate enough daily park-and-ride users to pay for it's own maintenance of that parking infrastructure, parking lots should be sold and redeveloped to TOD. No cross-subsidization - let each park-and-ride live and die on it's own economics.
• If there's a private parking lot at a station, remove the public parking lot and redevelop it. Private parking can function for the parking need and will charge market rates to manage it.
• Prioritize a pathway/cycletrack/sidewalk network of the highest quality to link every station to the surrounding community at a far greater quality/priority. Like we do for Park-and-Ride users today, but just for all other modes of travel that are far more transit-aligned.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

The one counterpoint I'd make is that, based on my experience of behavioural studies, park and ride users are better thought of as "drivers parking offsite and taking transit as a shuttle" than as "transit users who happen to drive instead of walking to transit". That is, if park and ride is unavailable, they are more likely overall to switch to driving all the way than to switch to walking to transit. And we can use every transit rider we can get; park and ride users tend to be more affluent as well, and part of having a good transit system is maintaining a social and political understanding that transit is important and worth investing in. So I think there is some benefit in maintaining some park and ride space, particularly if it can be transitioned into more of a user-pay model.


One more to add:

• Remove residential parking permit programs near LRT stations. There are dozens of spaces for car parking near most LRT stations, built and maintained with public money, that aren't being used because they are residential streets. If park and ride is valuable, why are we leaving these spaces on the table? If there's more demand for on-street parking near LRT stations than is available, then we can use ParkPlus to charge a fee for this (and give station area residents a discounted rate), which will pay for itself.

This is Wynnum North station in Brisbane, Australia:

The orange box are the 32 official park and ride stalls provided by the government. The red area shows twice as many cars parked in informal locations, providing extra park and ride space and transit ridership at no marginal cost to anybody.

 

[Urban Outdoorsman]

Personally I've used the park and rides for the sole purpose of not having to pay for parking downtown, so charging for that service would 100% stop me from using it. But all that to say, I still think the more inner city park and rides are over built and could easily be made smaller and still retain their purpose

 

[CBBarnett]

The one counterpoint I'd make is that, based on my experience of behavioural studies, park and ride users are better thought of as "drivers parking offsite and taking transit as a shuttle" than as "transit users who happen to drive instead of walking to transit". That is, if park and ride is unavailable, they are more likely overall to switch to driving all the way than to switch to walking to transit. And we can use every transit rider we can get; park and ride users tend to be more affluent as well, and part of having a good transit system is maintaining a social and political understanding that transit is important and worth investing in. So I think there is some benefit in maintaining some park and ride space, particularly if it can be transitioned into more of a user-pay model.


One more to add:

• Remove residential parking permit programs near LRT stations. There are dozens of spaces for car parking near most LRT stations, built and maintained with public money, that aren't being used because they are residential streets. If park and ride is valuable, why are we leaving these spaces on the table? If there's more demand for on-street parking near LRT stations than is available, then we can use ParkPlus to charge a fee for this (and give station area residents a discounted rate), which will pay for itself.

This can probably all move to the Calgary Transit thread, but will try to keep things on the Brentwood Station discussion.

From the little googling I did, Calgary Transit did study the effect of their $3/day charge for the LRT parking experiment from June 2009 to December 2009 when Council cancelled the attempt. Here's a summary from the Transit report on the experience. link

A few interesting quotes from the report below:

• "In 2009, Calgary Transit ridership dropped by 1% ... Various indicators suggest that the main reason for decreased transit ridership in 2009 was a significant decline in employment, particularly in the downtown."
• "Counts done at nine CTrain stations before and after the implementation of the parking charges found a 22% increase in weekday bus ridership – about 1,850 daily trips - accessing these stations immediately after the charge for parking. Ridership has continued to increase on these routes in 2010."
• "CTrain passenger counts at the three locations where CTrains enter the downtown do not show evidence of a ridership decline in 2009."
• "There was a net increase of parking in areas adjacent to the stations (spill over parking). However, some customers who were parking near the stations prior to the charge for parking reported that they are now using park and ride."
• "Charging for parking has proven to be a useful tool for balancing the demand for parking since it places a value on this added level of service and has proven to influence a shift to other modes of access. Revenues from parking have permitted a higher level of cleaning, maintenance and security that has resulted in improved customer ratings and a significant decrease in auto crime."

So charging for parking resulted in no change in LRT ridership, an increase in feeder bus ridership, and better quality stations and parking lots thanks to the additional revenue. The $3 / stall policy wasn't in place very long, but was enough to start pointing to where people value paying for parking more.

IN the table below, I highlighted Brentwood - as it was the lowest performing paid lot in the NW - and Anderson for comparison. Data showed utilization for when it was paid, and when it became free again. Brentwood had nearly half the lot empty when pricing was added.

A report from 2018 on the utilization of the reserved parking demand. Brentwood again the lowest in the NW:

My take - from these 2 data points nearly a decade apart, Brentwood (and several other) park-and-ride can be vastly reduced in size or eliminated entirely with no negative system impact to ridership. That's not to say remove park-and-ride from the toolkit entirely - just to say that the current policy setup is expensive, inefficient and works in many stations counter to transit's primary goals to provide transit service. Of course, lots of people will be unhappy with change - but more people will get a better funded and sustainable transit system out a change that prices parking and vastly reduces supply of park-and-ride systemwide in favour of development. All good reasons for a substantial reform of park-and-ride.

When a parking fee was charged in 2009, stations where transit users didn't see the value remained much less used (like Brentwood). Charging for parking lets us see something close to real demand - if the demand for parking isn't there with a nominal fee, then the parking lot is too big and should be eliminated for transit-oriented development that actually drives further ridership far more effectively than the largest, cheapest parking lot.

Brentwood, Anderson and others have been substantially too big since at least 2009 - 13 years ago. If we had data going further back I bet it would show a similar over-built parking supply for years, perhaps as far back as when Brentwood was no longer the terminus station in 2003 when Dalhousie was added. I think we have seen enough approach to station parking to warrant a rethink and redevelop most/all of Brentwood.

 

[darwink]

I think there'd be a bit more excitement about the city fronting utility money for TOD in the p&r lots if Westbrook broke ground.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Lots of good comments regarding the Brentwood park and ride.
If 50% of the parking was used when it was pay parking, maybe the city needs to go back to pay parking and develop the other 50% of the lot.

 

[CBBarnett]

Lots of good comments regarding the Brentwood park and ride.
If 50% of the parking was used when it was pay parking, maybe the city needs to go back to pay parking and develop the other 50% of the lot.

It’s two complementary, but separate questions to me.

1. Should we redevelop Brentwood park-and-ride?

Yes - there’s no evidence that our current policies are achieving anything productive or in line with the policy at this location after 2 decades of trying. All evidence we’ve ever received is actually pointing the other way - the current policy environment is creating a perverse outcome counter to all the goals we have about transit, TOD and city building at Brentwood.

If highest and best use was only a taxpayer subsidized parking lot; it would be busier (1), drivers would be willing to pay for it (2), and the various landowners around it wouldn’t be proposing substantial, high density redevelopment (3).

2. Should we charge for parking at park-and-rides in general?

Yes - transit’s goal is to provide transit service; get them out of the parking business. First step is making parking cost neutral by station - charge per stall what it takes to maintain, operate and repair the existing parking stalls for that station. If drivers balk at the cost to do so, they don’t value the parking and it should be sold and redeveloped. Transit and the rider benefits as a result in any scenario in which drivers pay their cost, either through reduced costs or higher revenues.

• First scenario - drivers don’t think it’s worth it and refuse to pay. Parking lots sold for market development around a station, thus driving ridership higher. Higher ridership generates transit revenue.
• Second scenario - On sites where parking is popular and drivers willing to pay, cost recovery is achieved and parking lot can operate to a higher standard, better security and better condition. Transit fares no longer subsidize parking operating costs, freeing up revenue to provide better service.

Transit should be pushing this all the time, every year. I get it - pilot project was quashed, political blowback, tension and lots of angry people yelling at you in 2009 etc. but we’ve had a decade to collect our thoughts. It’s time to get on it again until it happens - TOD and market prices parking for park-and-ride are the right answers and have been for decades. Let’s go already!

 

[MichaelS]

Looks like the DP for Vecova has been submitted:

DMAP

 

[Chinook Arch]

Building a parkade is very expensive, to the point that if TOD development is contingent on some park and ride lots being replaced by a parkade prior to development, it kills the development potential. Look no further than Anderson TOD, which has an approved plan, and even some funding approved for it, but zero action. It is because at the time of the plan approval, Council stated that they wanted to replace the lost surface park and ride stalls with a parkade. The budget for the City's real estate arm does not cover this cost, so the project sits, undeveloped.

I would think the cost of above ground parkade would be feasible if some of the other parking lot area gets developed.

 

[Surrealplaces]

I would think the cost of above ground parkade would be feasible if some of the other parking lot area gets developed.

I tried looking up the costs of above ground parkades, but the costs are all over the map. If the city could build a small one for ~20-30 million I could see it making sense to develop the rest. For the record, I'd be okay, with no parking lot, and developing all of it, but throwing in a parkade might make it more palatable to the public.

This isn't 100% accurate, but it give a general idea of the space involved. approximately 7 towers could be built, and a 4 storey parkade would still maintain roughly the same number of parking spots.

 

[Meikkhaell]

Just to give my perspective as a current UCalgary student who does exactly what you guys are saying every day (drive from home to brentwood, park there, walk to campus, rarely take transit) ...

I understand the park and ride lots are being misused to a degree by us, however for lots of people there is really no alternative. I've got lots of friends who live in the deep south, and it's a 1.5-2 hour commute for them to get to campus via transit. Why, then, wouldn't they instead drive ~30 minutes to park at Brentwood? Even for me, I live in the northwest. But if I wanted to take transit to campus, I'd need to wait for a bus that only comes every 30 minutes, ride it for 10 minutes, wait for the train, ride it for 10 minutes, THEN walk from brentwood or university station to my classes. Compare that to driving to Brentwood in ~10 minutes, and the choice is obvious. Pair that with the decline in cleanliness and safety on Calgary Transit we've seen lately, and it's unfortunately faster, cheaper, and safer to drive.

My point being, if you're going to remove or privatize the majority of park & ride parking, you better have a solid transit system for people to switch to. And we don't. Until we do, that option shouldn't be stripped away from university students.
Speaking of privatizing parking, campus parking passes are around $120-$150 per month. This is WHY people park at Brentwood in the first place. Charging notoriously broke & indebted university students something like $500/semester just to park on campus is predatory. Half the time the lots aren't even full, yet they maintain these prices. That's not free market economics.

My philosophy is that I'm already charged a prejudicial amount for insurance, and I can't practically get around this city without a car, so I may as well use my car as much as possible. I pay $300/month because I'm in a demographic that society deems more reckless / stupid when it comes to driving. I've never had any accidents, problems, or tickets myself, yet the second I got my license that was the baseline, and that's what I will pay for the foreseeable future. This notion is common among many of my friends as well. There's bigger problems at play here. We aren't taking up park & ride lots for convenience. It's out of necessity, to avoid paying thousands more for parking on top of everything we already owe, and to avoid 3+ hour daily commutes on unsafe and inefficient transit systems.

 

[darwink]

Just to give my perspective as a current UCalgary student who does exactly what you guys are saying every day (drive from home to brentwood, park there, walk to campus, rarely take transit) ...

I understand the park and ride lots are being misused to a degree by us, however for lots of people there is really no alternative. I've got lots of friends who live in the deep south, and it's a 1.5-2 hour commute for them to get to campus via transit. Why, then, wouldn't they instead drive ~30 minutes to park at Brentwood? Even for me, I live in the northwest. But if I wanted to take transit to campus, I'd need to wait for a bus that only comes every 30 minutes, ride it for 10 minutes, wait for the train, ride it for 10 minutes, THEN walk from brentwood or university station to my classes. Compare that to driving to Brentwood in ~10 minutes, and the choice is obvious. Pair that with the decline in cleanliness and safety on Calgary Transit we've seen lately, and it's unfortunately faster, cheaper, and safer to drive.

My point being, if you're going to remove or privatize the majority of park & ride parking, you better have a solid transit system for people to switch to. And we don't. Until we do, that option shouldn't be stripped away from university students.
Speaking of privatizing parking, campus parking passes are around $120-$150 per month. This is WHY people park at Brentwood in the first place. Charging notoriously broke & indebted university students something like $500/semester just to park on campus is predatory. Half the time the lots aren't even full, yet they maintain these prices. That's not free market economics.

My philosophy is that I'm already charged a prejudicial amount for insurance, and I can't practically get around this city without a car, so I may as well use my car as much as possible. I pay $300/month because I'm in a demographic that society deems more reckless / stupid when it comes to driving. I've never had any accidents, problems, or tickets myself, yet the second I got my license that was the baseline, and that's what I will pay for the foreseeable future. This notion is common among many of my friends as well. There's bigger problems at play here. We aren't taking up park & ride lots for convenience. It's out of necessity, to avoid paying thousands more for parking on top of everything we already owe, and to avoid 3+ hour daily commutes on unsafe and inefficient transit systems.

Just watch out. You’ll eventually be fined. Whether your fines will ever be as high as buying a parking pass ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[CBBarnett]

Just to give my perspective as a current UCalgary student who does exactly what you guys are saying every day (drive from home to brentwood, park there, walk to campus, rarely take transit) ...

I understand the park and ride lots are being misused to a degree by us, however for lots of people there is really no alternative. I've got lots of friends who live in the deep south, and it's a 1.5-2 hour commute for them to get to campus via transit. Why, then, wouldn't they instead drive ~30 minutes to park at Brentwood? Even for me, I live in the northwest. But if I wanted to take transit to campus, I'd need to wait for a bus that only comes every 30 minutes, ride it for 10 minutes, wait for the train, ride it for 10 minutes, THEN walk from brentwood or university station to my classes. Compare that to driving to Brentwood in ~10 minutes, and the choice is obvious.

That's the whole point - everyone's options and choices for where they live are restricted, partly because we are using the Park-and-Ride at Brentwood and other places like it so inefficiently. We don't have anywhere near the amount of housing and choice near transit - and it is a trade-off in this case. Rather than stuff Brentwood with a few hundred homes so people have more options to live closer to places they want to go, we prefer to use the land as free parking for a few hundred people (some student) from the deep south and elsewhere to commute 30km a day by car and charge them nothing for that privilege.

Pair that with the decline in cleanliness and safety on Calgary Transit we've seen lately, and it's unfortunately faster, cheaper, and safer to drive.

I don't think this is true.

• Faster? Probably true, especially if it's a random point in a suburbs far away. Choice of home location is the biggest factor here; live closer to your destination or at a existing Red Line Station and the travel time distance gap between driving and transit obviously shrinks.
• Safer? Perception probably; statistically probably not. Driving and car collisions are exceedingly dangerous - typically the 2nd leading cause of death for 15 - 24 year olds in Canada, behind suicide.
• Cheaper? Nope. More on this later.

My point being, if you're going to remove or privatize the majority of park & ride parking, you better have a solid transit system for people to switch to. And we don't. Until we do, that option shouldn't be stripped away from university students.

This is circular - "we shouldn't change our approach to transit until our approach produces a better system". The current transit system's issues are completely a product of it's approach; waiting for things to get more "solid" on their own before making any changes won't do anything.

Speaking of privatizing parking, campus parking passes are around $120-$150 per month. This is WHY people park at Brentwood in the first place. Charging notoriously broke & indebted university students something like $500/semester just to park on campus is predatory. Half the time the lots aren't even full, yet they maintain these prices. That's not free market economics.

Are you arguing the market for parking is broken around the university? I would agree - given that Brentwood Park-and-Ride is free to use and we subsidize parking throughout our society literally everywhere by mandating it's existence. The university probably built more parking that it could possible need because some rule made them do it. They are now paying for overbuilding by charging more to park there and raising tuition for everyone, drivers or non-drivers.

Parking is not a free market; I would welcome all parking becoming part of the free market - where prices are created by buyers and sellers negotiating price based supply and demand. What is the demand to park around the university? Apparently someone is willing to pay the monthly cost as the lots are "half-full" sometimes. What are the costs to maintain all this parking?

From the earlier Park-and-Ride study where Brentwood was $3 / day for parking, demand collapsed because the free market forces didn't value it even at a low price of $3 / day. That makes the parking lot a good candidate to be put to a higher and better use. It would be a free-market supported outcome.

My philosophy is that I'm already charged a prejudicial amount for insurance, and I can't practically get around this city without a car, so I may as well use my car as much as possible. I pay $300/month because I'm in a demographic that society deems more reckless / stupid when it comes to driving. I've never had any accidents, problems, or tickets myself, yet the second I got my license that was the baseline, and that's what I will pay for the foreseeable future. This notion is common among many of my friends as well. There's bigger problems at play here.

So close to the answer here - you are totally correct, you (and all of us, students and former students alike) are a victim of predatory, inefficient and expensive system. But it's not the transit system and park-and-ride policy that you are a victim to - it's car dependency.

All that insurance you and everyone else pays is to cover the collective risks of millions of poorly trained drivers who never have to be retested, are allowed to rip around a crowded city in powerful, incredibly expensive vehicles, in all sorts of weather conditions. The results are predictable - you, every other car-owner and every non car-owner indirectly is victim to the most expensive system of transportation we have ever come up with - cars.

U-Pass is $160 / term, or about $50 / month. Adult transit passes are $112 / month. You pay $300 / month for insurance. I assume your gas, maintenance, savings for the time when you need a new car is likely also at least a few hundred dollars a month too. Your current transportation costs from owning and using a car are probably 5 - 10x the cost of a monthly transit pass. Didn't you say driving was the cheapest option? I wouldn't be surprised if your car ownership costs exceed the monthly cost for the most expensive transit system in the world.

Better yet, here's a cheap room for rent walking distance from Brentwood and U of C. Costs about the same as owning a car per month. Furnished too. And most ironically, the rental comes with a free parking space: https://www.rentfaster.ca/ab/calgary/rentals/shared/1-bedroom/charleswood/358928

We aren't taking up park & ride lots for convenience. It's out of necessity, to avoid paying thousands more for parking on top of everything we already owe, and to avoid 3+ hour daily commutes on unsafe and inefficient transit systems.

No one is blaming students - it's not students fault that Brentwood parking is free, our policies are stupid and unenforced, and some people choose to take advantage of it. It's not just students that take advantage of mis-priced parking.

But the current approach to Brentwood is hardly free - subsidizing drivers, especially those who don't even use transit takes money away from the transit service itself. Further, maintaining parking rather than housing here means even more people will be forced to do inefficient, long and expensive commutes because they are forced to live in far less accessible locations.

 

[Habanero]

It’s two complementary, but separate questions to me.

1. Should we redevelop Brentwood park-and-ride?

Yes - there’s no evidence that our current policies are achieving anything productive or in line with the policy at this location after 2 decades of trying. All evidence we’ve ever received is actually pointing the other way - the current policy environment is creating a perverse outcome counter to all the goals we have about transit, TOD and city building at Brentwood.

If highest and best use was only a taxpayer subsidized parking lot; it would be busier (1), drivers would be willing to pay for it (2), and the various landowners around it wouldn’t be proposing substantial, high density redevelopment (3).

2. Should we charge for parking at park-and-rides in general?

Yes - transit’s goal is to provide transit service; get them out of the parking business. First step is making parking cost neutral by station - charge per stall what it takes to maintain, operate and repair the existing parking stalls for that station. If drivers balk at the cost to do so, they don’t value the parking and it should be sold and redeveloped. Transit and the rider benefits as a result in any scenario in which drivers pay their cost, either through reduced costs or higher revenues.

• First scenario - drivers don’t think it’s worth it and refuse to pay. Parking lots sold for market development around a station, thus driving ridership higher. Higher ridership generates transit revenue.
• Second scenario - On sites where parking is popular and drivers willing to pay, cost recovery is achieved and parking lot can operate to a higher standard, better security and better condition. Transit fares no longer subsidize parking operating costs, freeing up revenue to provide better service.

Transit should be pushing this all the time, every year. I get it - pilot project was quashed, political blowback, tension and lots of angry people yelling at you in 2009 etc. but we’ve had a decade to collect our thoughts. It’s time to get on it again until it happens - TOD and market prices parking for park-and-ride are the right answers and have been for decades. Let’s go already!

I would be quite happy with a half and half scenario like the one in SP's image. Construct a small parkade to keep drivers happy, but open up the other 75% of the land for development. For all the people who live less than a km away from the station, parking is irrelevant. Brentwood is one of the best stations where you could build a lot of housing.

 

[CBBarnett]

I would be quite happy with a half and half scenario like the one in SP's image. Construct a small parkade to keep drivers happy, but open up the other 75% of the land for development. For all the people who live less than a km away from the station, parking is irrelevant. Brentwood is one of the best stations where you could build a lot of housing.

It would be a really expensive compromise based on politics and not evidence. The trick would be keeping any parkade small, but ideally - don't build it at all as it's playing right into the incorrect assumptions that got us into this mess at transit stations in the first place.

If the politics force the new development to pay for that parking, then we burden the redevelopment with the cost... and we are right back where we started with our existing TOD policy sterilizing the economics of any park-and-ride redevelopment because it does exactly this.

Some rough math, using 69 Street Parkade as an example. That parkade was built for about $35 million in 2009, guessing about $40 - 50M today with inflation applied. I'll go with $35M and pretend no inflation to be generous. $35 million / 735 stalls = $47,619 / stall. Let's use that for our hypothetical parking garage at Brentwood.

Construction costs for new parkade

• Brentwood's park-and-ride has 980 stalls.
• Big assumption - let's assume we only want to replace the same proportion of parking that was utilized when we charge for parking. This is our best estimate for true, self-supporting demand at a cost-neutral price (link here to report) - that means we only have to replace 52% of parking. or 510 stalls.
• 510 stall * $47,619 / stall = $24.3 million

Operating costs for new parkade

• Annual full cost of maintenance and operations for a parkade is about $1,200 / stall, or $100 / month / stall. This is much higher than surface parking, but we can offset transit's ongoing costs to maintain that parking structure by charging for it.
• Works out to about $3.25 dollars revenue needed / stall / day to offset ongoing costs once constructed ... amazingly, it's almost like we tried this before minus a bit of inflaton - 2009's $3 / day transit park-and-ride experiment

Who pays for this new parking garage?
This is the big question.

• If Transit pays: $24.3M taken from transit's capital budget. That's about 5 fewer LRT cars worth, just to replace some parking with less parking.
• If the new development pays: $24.3M split among the new housing units created. Let's assume no engineering and technical issues of fitting all this parking and units, and focus strictly of distributing the parking to those new units in a flat chare per unit. Make the math easy - assume we can fit 1,000 units on that park and ride space freed up - that's $24,300 / unit extra, to pay for a parkade that the unit won't even use. Project-ruining extra costs - we make that a rule and the development won't happen, defeating the whole point.
• If general tax revenue pays: $24.3M is about 1 - 2% of the city's annual capital budget, when you exclude Greenline.

In summary - could we build a replacement parkade? Sure we could. It's just a really, really inefficient and expensive way to produce the same amount of parking than if we just got rid of 48% of it right now and not build anything else.