Calgary has a problem: Parking

I just finished reading an article from the CBC on how the city of Calgary will be raising the metered rates downtown to $4 an hour.

So let me get this straight.

Not only is downtown real estate at an all time premium, defeating places like Tokyo in terms of occupation vacancies, and not only is Calgary the most costly place to park in all of Canada ($375/mth before this hike), and not only that but we are destroying almost any building that isn't 10 years old in the core to be replaced with a giant hole in the ground, but now we are making it EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE?!

Well I guess it makes sense. Really, we should all be taking public transportation and saving the environment like progressive good willing citizens.

Oh wait, I forgot. Calgaryš„ôs public transit is potentially one of the worst Iš„ôve ever had the chance to experience. This week Iš„ôve been hearing about how buses have been running 1-2 hours LATE because it got a bit cold. Dunno why that caught them off guard, winter is only the dominant season here. Wait Iš„ôve gone off track.. Ha! Pun!

The City of Calgary has spent countless of millions of dollars on improving the roads in Calgary, in the hopes that traffic can cope with the huge influx of people. This is fantastic, we can all drive downtown so that we canš„ôt find a place to park. Seriously, is this some kind of sick joke?

The private spots, they will increase their rates

So the City raises the rates, gives rights to destroy and build buildings without making arrangements for parking. Now what? Well Iš„ôll tell you what. Impark, everyoneš„ôs beloved ticket giver, is going to jack their rates again. And seeing how they own most of the parking spots in all of North America Iš„ôm sure they are pretty choked about it.

Thankfully I live downtown; but sadly I canš„ôt walk everywhere.

*Side note, notice the picture for Behind R4NT (and from R4NT Issue 5.2) with Marisha.. Well anyways, that parking lot has since been demolished a few months ago.