Does Ottawa need more park and rides?

Taking a bus downtown to work is common practice for folks who live in the suburbs. With gas prices in the capital growing, taking the bus instead of driving all the way to work can be cheaper and faster. OC Transpo's park and rides are popular, and some are bursting at the seams. The city says that's a good thing.

“The interest in park and rides is a huge endorsement of our transit system,” wrote city spokesperson Jocelyne Turner in an email to OpenFile.

There are currently 12 lots in the city that comprise approximately 5,700 spaces. And the city has plans to expand and develop more lots. Turner said some of the projects for 2011 include expanding the Fallowfield lot, and looking into a new lot at the southeast corner of Strandherd and Woodroffe.

Kanata North councillor Marianne Wilkinson, the chair of the city's transportation committee, says park and rides are a good idea. But it's not as simple as just building more.

"It’s a money problem, not a planning problem," she says, adding that municipalities pay for 53 percent of all infrastructure in Canada—up from about 30 percent in 1961. Cities only collect about eight cents of every tax dollar in Canada, according to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and Wilkinson says that makes it difficult to find money for more infrastructure.

Wilkinson says that although the city committed $10 million over five years to improving park and rides, it might not be enough. The cost of maintenance and security alone will consume a large chunk of that money.

Some local transit enthusiasts believe that park and rides themselves are troublemakers. They cater only to commuters with cars, they say, and developing more lots requires finding more space—which might mean paving greenspace.

“There’s no question that the city needs more park and rides, and that some of the ones they already have are too small,” says Barry Wellar, an urban and regional planning professor at the University of Ottawa. “On the other hand, if they put in park and rides, they may very well be encouraging more sprawl, which encourages more park and rides, which encourages more sprawl.”

Peter Raaymakers , the executive director of Public Transit in Ottawa, says park and rides are victims of their own success. They should be a temporary solution to the overall problem of getting residents from where they live to where they work and shop, he says, not a permanent one.

Most lots fill up quickly and many commuters are forced to walk long distances past a sea of cars. Others park at malls—or park illegally in non-parking spaces—and risk getting ticketed by the city.

Wellar and Raaymakers agree that the problem is much bigger than putting in a few extra lots. They say the city should work harder to achieve transport-oriented development.

“What you need to do is when you have a giant transit hub like the ones that are currently surrounded by parking lots, what you do is you surround them with development,” says Raaymakers.

Wellar advises that park and rides depend on a lot of finite variables: they can only grow so large; nearby roads can only grow so wide; and, more broadly, commuters can only consume so many fossil fuels. And Wellar says that commuters should buy homes closer to the core, instead of moving further into suburbs.

“The park and ride problem is just the tip of the iceberg,” warns Wellar.