Removing On-Street Parking

Author

Liam Gill
February 08, 2025

Hey All,

Welcome back to Middle Ground; this is the eleventh newsletter of our 28 policies in the 28-day series ahead of the 2025 Ontario provincial election.

Today’s issue will discuss how removing on-street parking in downtown Toronto can reduce congestion.

Summary

By removing on-street parking in Downtown Toronto the city can significantly reduce congestion, opening up additional traffic lanes or creating dedicated bus lanes.

What is the problem?
According to data from INRIX, drivers in Toronto spent 63 hours a year stuck in traffic, ranking the city as the 17th most congested city worldwide. This congestion is estimated to cost the city’s economy up to $11B per year in lost economic activity, making every resident, business and government worse off because of the lack of proper infrastructure. 

This issue is so bad that despite that, 76% of Torontonians now support allowing 24/7 construction of roadsto speed up the improvement of local infrastructure. Most concerning, however, is that 53% of the GTHA’s residents claim they have considered moving away from Southern Ontario due to traffic. 

How can we immediately improve the situation?
One action that can be taken nearly overnight to improve roads throughout the city is to remove 100% of on-street parking on major streets and avenues in the downtown core. Removing on-street parking has two rationales; first, it opens an additional traffic lane for drivers. With streets like University being two lanes, that is an extra 50% capacity; on a street like Bloor, where significant portions are single-lane, it will double capacity. Second, it will disincentivize driving into the downtown core where possible. For those who have appointments, meetings, or events downtown, the lack of street parking would prompt them to consider parking at a TTC or GO Station outside the downtown core and taking the train instead of driving the entire distance. This will reduce the number of cars on the road, reducing congestion.

Here is an image of Bloor Street where the province is currently planning to remove bike lanes. As the image shows, the lane of parking on a major street contributes more to the congestion than the bike lane. Image Credit: Blog TO

Here is an image of University Avenue, where again the province is currently planning to remove bike lanes. This image also shows the significant impact that the parking lane (along with the custom walk path for those who park there) has on the available space for through traffic.

How can we accommodate cars without on-street parking?
A long-term solution to replacing on-street parking is to require that all new condos and office buildings downtown provide Green P Parking to the City of Toronto for free. As each new building is constructed, the city can add another 25-50 spots to their network. Over time, the amount of parking available through this system would outnumber the spots available on-street. 

Policy Initiative

Remove on-street parking from all major streets and avenues in downtown and require that all new condos and apartment buildings allocate parking to the City of Toronto’s Green P Parking network.

Further Reading:

Onwards and Upwards,

P.S. - Please share this with as many people as possible to help grow our community and help us hold our elected officials responsible for implementing these policy initiatives.