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nobody listened in '69

"There is an increasing acceptance by the traffic engineering and urban planning professions to the concept that carparking should not become and end in itself, but be recognized as only one phase of overall planning and transportation policies. It is further recognized that carparking policies and pricing can have a major influence upon the successful implementation of transport programs. Simply put, cheap parking encourages heavy usage of the private auto, and concurrently requires larger parking facilities and costly roadway improvement works.

We believe that the University should limit its responsibility in such access/egress matters to:

  • providing only a sufficient quantum of carparking to serve the needs of those users willing to pay the full economic charges for same
  • soliciting and encouraging public transport authorities to improve service schedules and routes. 

From our experience and from the literature of our profession, it is apparent that hospitals, colleges and universities throughout North America have become more aware of the realities of the carparking problem through the past decade. They have realized that without definitive policies, carparking demands can swell into enormous appetites for greensward conversion, capital and operating funds, and administration and policing attention....

Through the years of increasing affluence and motor vehicle registrations, the initial small parking areas gradually encroached upon lawns and playgrounds, and pressure arose from late arrivals to be granted equal accommodation privileges or 'rights'. Supervision and rationing of parking spaces became administrative nightmares. No parking charges were levied, yet the users wanted ever improved facilities -  asphalt paving, reservation signs, engine heater, prompt snow removal and the like. Patronage of public transport facilities, of course, decline in the vicinity."


R.F. Smith, Manager of Engineering, Health Science Centre, Parking Design and Development Ltd. Letter dated 4th March, 1969, in Revised Interim Internal Traffic and Parking Report, June 1969 by H.G. Acres and Company Limited, June 1969.
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