The funny part about it is during the week after 6pm and on the weekend ... I actually find parking downtown really easy and cheap : ) On the weekend I can easily find all day till 6pm parking for $5 (in city lots !) and during the week $6 after 6pm till whenever.

During the day or if you need to park across the 5->6pm boundary, is a different story

So much so that during the weekend sometimes its hard to justify taking the subway, which costs quite a bit more for say 4 tickets (2, both ways) compared to $5 parking !
 
Parking spots simply aren't worth it.

$50K+ and $50/month maintenance. The city is gridlocked. It's a terrible investment.
 
As we add more and more people to the city, cars become bigger and bigger liabilities as there just isn't the road space, and I think the younger generation has mostly figured that out. Transit, cycling, walking is the way to go, even when it's a bit of a pain. Any inconvenience is more than made up for by the gradual improvement to your health that you'll realize. Your carbon footprint goes way down too, so it's all good.

42
 
Still, I would never buy a unit in a building without parking. Not thinking about parking is risky in my opinion because it ignores two issues: changes in your life as you age and have different responsibilities, and liquidity of your unit. Liquidity of your unit doesn't matter if you don't plan to sell and the real estate market is good but those are two assumptions that are out of your control. Having a parking space or not is under your control. As we add more and more people to the city and more and more people are willing to live without cars, on the contrary parking spots will appreciate in value and importance at a rate greater than living space.

The real issue to me with parking in smaller buildings with underground parking garages is will these parking facilities become financial mill-stones around the necks of the building? We know that repair costs for parking facilities go up and up over time. If there are a lot of units in a building there is a large pool of money to address this. What about smaller projects? Maybe technology and financial considerations have changed and this is no longer a problem but if you look at some older buildings the costs of underground parking structures is really burdensome for the owner / owners.
 
Torontovibe said:
The vast majority of people that I know who own condos in Toronto, do not have a car, so maybe it's just that fewer people in the core are driving. I even know people who had cars when they moved to the core but after a year of living downtown for about a year, they got rid of their cars. I don't think that's so unusual in Toronto today. Finding parking in the core is expensive and it can be more trouble than it's worth.
Click to expand...

From what I can see both worlds coexist in the city right now. Transit isn't quite extensive and convenient enough to make a car a complete liability, it really depends on where you live vs where you work and lifestyle etc. At the same time, transit is extensive and convenient enough that many can ditch a car altogether, including the monthly car payment, insurance and parking costs associated with it and get around just fine, given the right work/life choices. It's very much different from person to person. Toronto isn't quite like NYC or London yet where a car is a liability no matter what your situation. I look forward to when it is!
 
Toronto may not have hit the traffic tipping point quit yet… but it's now obvious that the tipping point is on the horizon and is approaching. We know we're not going to be getting more roads, so we need to use what we have more wisely, and that means more buses, streetcars, and wider or simply more heavily trafficked sidewalks. Air quality will improve, health with improve. We shouldn't be hopping in cars in the city as a matter of course; alternatives to that should be the matter of course with driving as the exception. Not that driving needs to be outlawed… I just think we need to reevaluate what our primary mode of getting around should be. As city dwellers I believe we have some responsibility to do what is best for the city we live in and love… and every token or Metropass sold, every pair of feet on the sidewalk, or every pair of 700 x 32s on the bike path or lane is a vote for the future of Toronto, while car rides are a vote for eventual gridlock.

42
 
We purchased an extra parking space in our building because when we moved in we had two Vespas and a car at the time. Because we're right in the core of the city, we walk to almost everything and might take our car out once a week at the most. We have since sold one Vespa since we no longer needed it for getting to work so we have been renting the extra parking space out. The money we get in rent more than covers the tax and maintenance of the parking space. Given the size of our condo and the location, we still think it was a worthwhile purchase to get the extra spot from the builder. At Yonge and Bloor we feel there will always be enough demand for parking that we aren't concerned about our ingestion in the second spot.
 
Benito said:
We purchased an extra parking space in our building because when we moved in we had two Vespas and a car at the time. Because we're right in the core of the city, we walk to almost everything and might take our car out once a week at the most. We have since sold one Vespa since we no longer needed it for getting to work so we have been renting the extra parking space out. The money we get in rent more than covers the tax and maintenance of the parking space. Given the size of our condo and the location, we still think it was a worthwhile purchase to get the extra spot from the builder. At Yonge and Bloor we feel there will always be enough demand for parking that we aren't concerned about our ingestion in the second spot.
Click to expand...

This is interesting. I have a rental property downtown just a few blocks down from where you live, benito and parking here is just $90/month. There is an abundance of parking there as it's full of students who don't own cars. Parking is very easy to find.

Conversely, my previous building had an almost non-existent supply of parking spots and the rent was around $200/month. I guess it all depends on the building and the area.
 
I guess there are enough units in my building without parking that there is demand from people here for spaces.
 
The block has been demolished.

I'm really surprised nobody mentioned this earlier considering this project sits on a very busy street at a prominent intersection. UTer's are dropping the ball...
 
I meant to drive by this past weekend to get some pictures up but I got tied up running errands - I heard the demolition started.

I will be stopping by and following the construction of this project with pictures as it progresses through construction. I figured there wasn't too much to take pictures of at this point.
 
Yesterday afternoon, from the laneway to the south:

kIMG_8032.jpg
lIMG_8031.jpg


42
 

Attachments

  • kIMG_8032.jpg
    kIMG_8032.jpg
    317 KB · Views: 844
  • lIMG_8031.jpg
    lIMG_8031.jpg
    322.3 KB · Views: 824
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top