Surface parking lots least productive use of land and harmful to walkable, sociable urban neighbourhoods.

This strategic gateway to the #Nanaimo Old City at Fitz and Selby is City owned and used for surface parking. On any...
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Sunday, July 19, 2015

Downtown #Nanaimo surface parking lots occupy about 35-40% of available land. If this is the lands highest and best use, returning maximum ROI, we're in trouble.
Posted by Nanaimo Commons on Sunday, July 19, 2015

Surface parking lots are the least productive use of land and harmful to walkable, sociable urban neighbourhoods. @Bill_McKay11 @Rearrang3d

— NanaimoCommons (@NanaimoCommons) July 19, 2015

@NanaimoCommons @Bill_McKay11 @Rearrang3d @acmefoodco Aerial photos are truth-tellers about our urban environments.

— Victoria Placemaking (@VicPlacemaking) July 19, 2015

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Author of The High Cost of Free Parking @DonaldShoup will find you a parking spot...

Author of The High Cost of Free Parking @DonaldShoup will find you a parking spot... http://t.co/Y48y2gfKb5 http://t.co/dffBFaT72B

— NanaimoCommons (@NanaimoCommons) January 9, 2015

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"Urban affordability and parking policy are closely connected" @CityLab

"for every parking stall we don't require developers to build, we can save 25% to 35% of the cost of rent" http://t.co/K6SUib8zSd #cplan
— Urbanpolicy (@UrbanPolicy) December 20, 2014

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Downtown surface parking doesn't leave much actual city

Whoa. Doesn't leave much actual city. RT @HenryGrabar Surface parking in downtown Little Rock: pic.twitter.com/bQVNjRs7lg
— Taras Grescoe (@grescoe) November 17, 2014

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PARK(ing) Day in #Nanaimo. Parking spots temporary "park lets." @DowntownNanaimo

Post by Downtown Nanaimo Business Improvement Association.

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Proposed Hilton Hotel To Council Monday — Includes "Lease" of Adjacent Waterfront Park

Details of rezoning application, City "lane" closure, acquisition and consolidation, from the City Council meeting agenda for Monday August 11, 2014 here.  35 storeys from the waterfront promenade, 303 room hotel with 59 parking spaces on site.

Read the post and the comments at: Gord Fuller Municipally (A)MUSING

From Streetfilms — Parking Craters: The Scourge of American Downtowns

Streetsblog's Angie Schmitt popularized the term "parking crater," and she explains it simply: A parking crater is "a depression in the middle of an urban area formed by the absence of buildings."

Different types of "meteors" left behind parking craters in the 20th Century -- sprawl subsidies, the erosion of manufacturing, highway building. Whatever the cause, parking craters absolutely destroy sections of downtowns and make the environment more inhospitable and unattractive for people. In these areas, there is virtually no street life. In warm weather the asphalt makes the air more oppressive. It's hell on earth. It's a parking crater.Parking Craters: Scourge of American Downtowns from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

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