Parking is a critical component of the City’s mobility and urban fabric. It supports the movement of goods and people and is also a part of the City’s real estate portfolio. Effectively managed, parking can help drive important city-building goals such as the efficient movement of people and goods, increasing housing supply, tackling climate change, and promoting compact development. Toronto’s parking system faces many challenges today – from competing priorities for off-street parking to increased cruising as people search for parking in congested areas. The City of Toronto recognized that these challenges will be exacerbated as the population grows, which led them to initiate work towards greater alignment of city policies and mandates for parking management to support its city-building objectives, including encouraging travel choices that manage congestion and reduce cruising, supporting local business operations and residents to meet daily needs, and enabling sustainable mobility services such as car-share and bike-share.

Access Planning was retained as the lead consultant for the development of a Strategic Parking Framework to support a city-wide parking strategy. This was supported by a team of collaborators including Arcadis IBI, WSP, Nelson\Nygaard, Lura and Angus Reid. Access managed the project across ten phases of work which included a broad array of technical analyses and background research on various topics including parking inventory, pricing tools, equity, governance, and traffic operations. The research included a review of review of peer jurisdictions' approaches nationally and internationally, as well as extensive stakeholder engagement with the City’s Parking Advisory Committee, City departments and agencies, and external parking providers and partners.

The final Strategic Parking Framework and recommended actions focused on guiding the City to comprehensively address Toronto’s parking challenges with a city-wide lens. By taking a city-wide view, the City can make informed strategic and operational decisions to ensure there is sufficient supply where needed, and that the supply is governed and managed efficiently and effectively to support the City in achieving its wider city-building goals.