Project description

Parking is essential for land use and transportation, helping achieve community goals like efficient land use, good urban design and economic prosperity.

Municipalities need to balance parking supply: too much is expensive and takes over streets, while too little drives customers away and causes overflow problems.

The City, together with a third-party contractor is conducting a two-part parking study: reviewing the Land Use Bylaw (LUB) parking standards and doing a detailed downtown parking study. The aim is to align Airdrie's parking needs with best practices, industry standards and market demands, supporting growth, downtown revitalization, affordable housing and economic prosperity.

The 2024 Parking Study is led by the City's Current Planning and Downtown Revitalization teams.

Provide your feedback

Map Feedback

Survey Feedback

Learn more about the study

For downtown, the study will:

  • Inventory downtown parking, including usage, turnover, peak hours and occupancy rates. This updates the 2017 work by Watt Consulting to find parking shortages and surpluses.
  • Analyze the minimum parking ratios needed to support development, especially downtown, to identify infill redevelopment opportunities.
  • Project parking demand for the next five years.
  • Recommend the best locations and sizes for parkades within the Community Revitalization Levy (CRL) area, which can be built with provincial funds.

For the entire community, the study will:

  • Evaluate Airdrie's position relative to larger parking standards, emerging trends and market demands to propose policy changes.
  • Identify how Land Use Bylaw parking standards affect the viability of market and non-market housing developments.

The study aims to:

  • Ensure current parking requirements align with best practices and emerging trends, recommending policy changes if needed.
  • Assess the effectiveness of minimum parking requirements for various land uses and demographics.
  • Evaluate if the prescribed parking ratios meet actual parking demand for different land uses.
  • Provide a detailed inventory of downtown parking infrastructure, including usage patterns, turnover, peak hours, and occupancy rates.
  • Gather insights from stakeholders about their parking experiences, needs, constraints, challenges, priorities, and concerns.
  • Identify underused or overburdened parking areas by comparing infrastructure capacity with actual usage.
  • Project parking demand for the next five years.
  • Suggest potential locations for a municipally owned parking structure based on approved CRL projects.
  • Develop a detailed plan to implement the recommended strategies over the next five years.

Through achieving these outcomes, the study aims to create a more efficient, effective, and user-friendly parking system that supports Airdrie's growth and development goals.