Yes - it really is worse than you think....... 
The city of Moncton was invited by the Moncton Wildcats to speak before season ticket holders at Legends Lounge in the Coliseum last evening (before the Wildcats game) regarding the parking situation at the new downtown events centre.
The city representatives probably knew they were in trouble when they arrived to a packed room with standing room only attendance.
They seemed ill prepared.
They gave a brief overview of their "traffic dispersal plan" and then opened the floor to questions from the audience. This is when things got interesting.
As usual, the city claimed that parking shouldn't be a problem with over 4000 parking spots available within a 10-15 minute walk of the events centre, with an additional 600 spots available for on street metered parking.
The majority of the parking spots available however are in private (currently bootable) lots. Unfortunately not every lot owner is interested in making their lots available for evening parking for the events centre, and even if they are prepared to make them available, they would most certainly expect a fee for parking privileges.
I don't think anyone would deny the right of private lot owners to charge a fee for the use of their property for parking purposes. The question therefore becomes "how much do these lot owners expect the public to pay for the right to park on their property???"
The city is apparently in negotiation with the (willing) lot owners to come up with an acceptable fee for evening parking. One of the city representatives made the (unsolicited and spontaneous) comment of "this isn't Toronto, and no one would accept paying $25 for the right to park for the evening." This begs the question "where did this $25 figure come from???" Was this just off the top of the representatives head or are some lot owners seriously thinking of charging such an outrageous fee???
Lot owners who
may be willing to consider renting out their lots in the evening apparently have expressed some reservations because they would be competing with free parking at the 600 metered on street parking spots in the core. They feel it may not be worth their while spending money developing a collection system for payment if people will simply park at the free spots anyway. In response, the city is apparently considering
charging for on street parking into the evening hours!!!! in order to "level the playing field". If this becomes the case, then there will effectively be
no free parking in the downtown at all. I wonder if the city has run this by the downtown restaurant and store owners yet???
As previously mentioned, not all lot owners are even interested in participating in providing event parking, therefore the optimistic figure of 4000 off street parking spots in the core may be way off target. Perhaps it will be more like 2000 spots. The presence of non participating lots also raises the spectre of evil vulture-like booters still preying on the innocent as they search desperately for anywhere,
anywhere to park their car before the performance (or game) begins. People such as this will be is so much hurry that they may neglect to do a thorough search for a sign stating that their chosen parking spot is patrolled by jack-booting Nazis, only to return to their vehicle after the event to a most unpleasant "surprise".
It should be noted that
no private lot owner has yet come to an agreement with the city regarding evening lot availability for the events centre.
So, in summary, there will likely be far fewer than the 4600 parking spots available that the city optimistically predicted. There will likely be
no free parking, even on the street. Finally, the evil spectre of the renegade booter will remain like the shadow of a preying mantis over the downtown core, guarding and protecting those lots not participating in events centre parking.
There were two other things brought up in the Q&A session:
1) - there are
no active plans for a pedway over the railway tracks to shorten the walk between available parking and the events centre. The city is hoping that such a pedway "might happen" in the future as part of any redevelopment plans south of the tracks. There was no indication if any such plans exist.
2) - the issue of snow clearing in the winter was also brought up. The city representatives said they would do their best to remove accumulated snow as quickly as possible, but this doesn't take away the fact that all it takes is 2-3 major snowstorms and this effectively eliminates on street parking in the core until the springtime.......
Looking around the several hundred people gathered in the room for the presentation, it was easily apparent to me that I was one of the youngest people there (and I'm 60). I would say the average attendee was likely in their mid 70's, probably on a fixed income, and likely disinclined to walk even 10 minutes to the events centre in even the best of weather (let alone mid February). I would say that Mr. Irving probably has a very big problem on his hands unless the city can come up with more satisfactory answers than they did last night......
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(but seriously im sure they already have a few names line up that will show what Moncton has been missing)
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