EDITOR:
With reference to your article “Parkades in downtown Charlottetown full with no passes available,” (The Guardian, Sept. 26): one of the challenges we face in changing our transportation system to a zero-carbon one is that we have government agencies set up in a way that does not support taking a broad, ecological view.
CADC (Charlottetown Area Development Corporation) sees itself as being in the parking business, and so, as one with hammers can only see the utility of nails, sees the solution to a parking shortage as building more parking.
We need to get CADC into the “getting people to and from downtown” business, and to consider and promote other options for doing so: public transit, cycling, walking, rolling, carpooling. All of these options aren’t available to everyone, but they’re available to a lot more of us than are taking advantage of them.
Let’s take that $30,000 to $50,000 cost per new parking space and use it, instead, to build better, year-round cycling infrastructure, to expand the public transit network, to repair and widen our sidewalks and make our streets safer and more welcoming to those without a car. And for those without other options, let’s offer incentives to drivers to carpool, to park on the edge of town and take the bus downtown, and to use our existing parking lots more efficiently.
There are many answers to the challenge of ensuring timely, safe, affordable transportation into downtown Charlottetown: none of the responsible ones include building more parking.
Peter Rukavina,
Charlottetown