Viewpoint: Less parking along retail stretch is a boon for local businesses

By Michael Yang

No parking? No problem.

Local businesses shouldn’t fret about the city’s latest proposal to axe half of the parking spots and reduce traffic lanes along portions of Elgin Street. Instead, they should embrace it.

That may sound backwards to those who do business along the bustling downtown artery. After all, the lack of parking for patrons and congestion in the area have long been headaches for Elgin merchants as demand continues to soar and space continues to dwindle.

But there comes a time when we have to accept reality.

The narrow commercial strip between Lisgar Street and the Queensway just cannot keep up with the scores of people who frequent its many restaurants and boutiques. And there’s no practical way, short of tearing up Jack Purcell Park and spending millions on an unwanted garage, to accommodate every driver stopping by to grab a fish taco from El Camino.

Instead, City of Ottawa planners are pitching a gutsy plan to detour as many motorists as possible from the busy corridor and transform a 1.6-kilometre stretch of the road into a more walkable space. Elgin’s narrow sidewalks will be widened to seven metres in some areas at the expense of 61 parking spots, and “flexible street spaces” are set to be used interchangeably as patios, pedestrian rest areas or parking spots.

“It’s going to be a place that’s more for people, less for travelling through,” Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney said at the design’s unveiling on Jan. 11.

Listen up restaurateurs and storeowners: that should be music to your ears.

Nearly 70 per cent of all people who frequent the street live in the surrounding area, according to a recent study. That means the  majority of regulars will stick around even in a worst-case scenario where frustrated drivers migrate to other growing entertainment hubs.  Even then, many will still find side-street parking in the neighbouring streets as downtown traffic is steered elsewhere.

The better news is that the best-case scenario is far more realistic. A more pedestrian-friendly Elgin could very well attract even greater crowds and will be well-suited to handle it.

It’s not hard to imagine an even livelier Elgin on a sunny summer day, bustling with packed patios and families comfortably strolling side-by-side. Inviting benches, shaded by overhanging trees, make the perfect pit stop. Tourists wander down from the newly-reopened National Arts Centre, hoping to grab a table at the Manx after reading about the quaint pub in the New York Times. It’s a beautiful sight to behold.
The pedestrian-centric initiative is not a first and has been successfully replicated in major cities across the world. Think New York’s Fifth Avenue if you’re dreaming big. London’s Camden High Street. Montreal’s Boulevard Saint Laurent or sections of Rue Sainte-Catherine. The list goes on.

The businesses along those streets have more or less profited handsomely despite paying some of the highest rents in the world. Perhaps Fifth Avenue is a bit ambitious, but Ottawa is still searching for its own premier destination. This plan puts Elgin Street firmly in the running.

That said, things aren’t all sunny. As reported by Centretown News, sky-high costs in the area are squeezing many local gems out of the market, other burgeoning districts like Lansdowne Park are siphoning away customers, and big-box, big-chain stores are always challenging Elgin’s unique boutique ecosystem.

The current city budget also doesn’t allow for the burying of overhead wires — a key concern for many locals.

But one issue Elgin businesses should cross off their lists is parking.