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Parking in Downtown Halifax remains the number 1 barrier to potential downtown visitors. Findings from a recent Narrative Research survey show that, as with previous years, parking remains the primary concern of the majority of potential visitors to downtown Halifax (see attached table). This is followed closely by traffic congestion, which is exacerbated by construction activities, particularly the Cogswell Interchange project. https://t.co/ZDYrXmRnTy Concerns about public transit are not a prominent barrier, ranking a distant fifth with only 18% of respondents. Each year, various surveys are conducted by multiple downtown organizations. They consistently show the same result: parking is the top concern in downtown Halifax. Yet, every year, this feedback from actual residents of HRM is dismissed by city officials, who address this obvious and recurring pain by removing even more street parking and hiking up parking fees and fines. The city justifies this dissonance, between new parking policies that make parking more difficult and expensive vs. the lived experience of downtown visitors, by pointing out under-utilized parking spaces in impractical parkades located a 10 to 20 minute walk (roundtrip) away from where the majority of visitors want to go during peak hours. Parking scarcity is deemed an “imaginary problem” and those who experience it are labelled as lazy drivers. Parking far from destination and walking is considered a normal expectation from a visitor of downtown Halifax, yet the same logic does not apply to visitors of business parks. They are both the same HRM residents, motivated by the same preferences, family schedules, and various daily urgencies. No one asks or expects a visitor to Bayer’s Lake or Dartmouth Crossing to park 10 minutes away from Walmart’s door and walk to the store. They also note that street parking usage is in decline, yet fail to see the link between this decline and recently approved increases to the cost of parking fees and fines, which are pushing more people away from downtown Halifax. Furthermore, the continued attrition of street parking spaces leads to more parking pain, which leads to fewer people visiting downtown, which leads to more attrition. Like a snake eating its own tail, this ouroboros is bad for downtown Halifax. The city can’t magically create hundreds of new street parking spots, but they can make it less costly to park and freeze further planned reductions to street parking in the downtown core. The current penalty in downtown Halifax for an expired/unpaid parking meter is $45. The penalty for a meter violation in downtown Toronto is $30. Vancouver? $25. Meanwhile, patrons of shops on Saint-Laurent in downtown Montreal pay $2.25 per hour in metered parking during peak times, while patrons of Spring Garden shops pay $3.75. We call on the city of Halifax to heed the results of this survey, and the many surveys before it. Parking scarcity and cost is a real (not perceived) barrier to those who wish to visit downtown Halifax.