TOareaFan
Superstar
I think they should charge everyone for parking (not a lot, even $2-3 a day or $25-30 a month) and de-couple the cost of building and maintaining and enforcing parking lots from the GO fare so that carpoolers, pedestrians, transit users, are rewarded and don't have the cost of parking integrated into their fare. The TTC doesn't have all passengers subsidize the parking spaces.
In addition, there could be continued reserved spaces.
Intellectually, you are right.....I think the public reaction, however, would be "you wanna charge me for parking? Do two things, reduce my fare by an equivalent amount and guarantee me there will be a spot there!"
I think they way they are increasing their parking revenues (with the reserved spots) is a bit more publically saleable....does not directly affect everyone...but does raise some cash.
I would suggest the next step would be to introduce "tiers" of spots for monthly reserving. Right now, my $50 gets me two things:
- A guarantee that there will be a spot there when I arrive, no matter what time and for what train
- A very well located spot near the station/tracks
Perhaps in the future there will be a charge for the first item but that spot might not be amongst the best spots in the station but if I paid a bit more then it would improve the location of my spot (trust me, in this bitter cold winter it has been nice to be able to sit in the warmth of my car with a coffee right up until the doors open on the train and still make it on!).