[drew]

And another gem from Brodbeck. Looks like he's trying the fire up the CJOB grumpy old man crowd for a fight!

Put up that parking lot
Like it or not, Winnipeggers will be driving their cars downtown

By TOM BRODBECK

Apparently some people don't like the fact that a multi-storey parkade could replace the crumbling King Building in the Exchange District.

The last thing we need is another parking lot downtown, they say.

But I wonder how those same folks plan to accommodate the 2,000 new Manitoba Hydro workers who will move downtown next year into their new Portage Avenue digs, especially when those staff have been encouraged to drive to work with parking subsidies?

Bedford Investments, which owns the dilapidated King building on the corner of King Street and Bannatyne Avenue, wants to tear it down and build a multi-level parkade with street-level commercial space.

Sounds good to me.

Parking in that area is horrible during business hours and the downtown is facing a parking crunch.

But the anti-developers don't like that idea. Many have contacted me after my Tuesday column about the King Building saying they don't want another stinkin' parking lot. They want to keep old, rotting buildings instead.

They want us all to take the bus and reduce the number of parking lots downtown, not expand them.

That would be great in a perfect world. But it's not going to happen.

Winnipeg is a car city and while we should continue to promote transit as an alternative, the reality is people are going to continue to drive downtown to work.

Manitoba Hydro is even encouraging its 2,000 employees to drive downtown once their new building is in place.

Employees will be given a transportation subsidy of about $53 a month that they can put towards parking costs.They can put it towards a bus pass, too. But let's face it, most people are going to drive.

Which means we need parking. Otherwise it's going to be parking mayhem downtown during working hours.

Part of improving the downtown is getting more people to work and live there. But you can't do that if you can't accommodate parking. That's just reality.

ARCTIC-LIKE WINTERS

You're simply not going to convince hordes of people in Winnipeg to leave their vehicles at home, especially not during our arctic-like winters.

People may think they want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by using their vehicles less.

But stand on Portage Avenue on any given day and watch the thousands of vehicles go by headed downtown with one driver in them. It's at least 70%.

People drive their cars in this city. That's just the way it is. And there isn't a whole lot anyone can do to change that in a significant way.

We don't need to turn every heritage building in the Exchange into a parking lot.

But a rotting, derelict building like the King should be demolished because it's a safety hazard.

And there's no reason in the world why it shouldn't be used to help increase parking capacity in the downtown.

Did anybody object when the Crocus building between Main Street and Old Market Square erected new parking space? No, because we needed the parking.

Let's get on with it.