BOMA Calgary

Calgary Parking Rates Rank Among the Highest According to Colliers Report

It is not surprising really that the June 2010 North American Parking Rate Survey rates parking in Calgary’s CBD among the most expensive in North America. http://dsg.colliers.com/document.aspx?report=428.pdf The report, prepared by Colliers International, notes that the median rate for unreserved covered or underground parking was $432.93 USD per month. This ranks Calgary16th amongst all the international cities studied, and the most expensive in Canada.  London, England was the most expensive city in the report at $932.99 USD.

The median monthly parking rate in Calgary was nearly $120 per month more than Toronto.  How could this be?  What makes Calgary parking more expensive than other cities?  Edmonton, by comparison, reported a median monthly cost of $275 USD.  Quite possibly the simple explanation is supply and demand.  Calgary has been artificially limiting the supply of parking through many of its restrictive development policies, and as a consequence has in effect engineered this problem.  On the capacity side, Calgary has failed to expand its public transportation network at a pace to match the growth of the city.  These two facts combine to create the “perfect storm” of exceedingly high prices.

Calgary could allieviate some of the supply/demand issues by increasing the capacity of its public transit system.  To its credit, the City has been doing this – purchasing more buses, approving LRT expansion (the West LRT leg is presently under construction with a completion date targeted as 2012).  But it is too little, too late and the prospect of catching up in a timely way is slim.

With 5 million square feet of new office supplycoming on-stream in the next 18 months, much of it with limited parking, it is probable that the parking situation will get worse, much worse, and therefore much more expensive.

There is a glimmer of hope:  This October the city will have a municpal election.  One way or the other, we will have a new mayor and a number of new faces on City Council.  Perhaps we will have a much needed, long over-due injection of strategic intelligence and the new Council will act to rid the community of failed policies such as those restrictive ones related to parking.

I am the eternal optimist, but will it happen?  Big question.