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EESTI ELU reedel, 4. oktoobril 2019 — Friday, October 4, 2019
A Tale of Two Parking Studies A key factor that will deter mine the acceptability of the new Madison Ave centre is parking. For this reason, I asked for a comprehensive parking study to be per formed. At the last Estonian House AGM, I introduced a motion that would have man dated such a study but was prevented from presenting it to the shareholders. There were rumours of a parking study, but even though the project posted an article sum marizing these findings on June 19, the study itself was never released to the public, Unfortunately, the summary was too brief for any in-depth analysis. Fortunately, the two parking studies that have been commissioned are dis played on the City of Toronto website. One was conducted by LMM Engineering (https://www.eesti. ca/pdf/2019/LMMParkingStudy. pdf). Its most glaring flaw is its observation that only a maxi mum of 12 parking spaces are utilized on Tuesday evenings at the Estonian House. As any
How many cars are actually parked at Estonian House parking lot? This seemingly simple question turns out to have many different answers that vary significantly. In his “Tale of two parking studies”, Markus Alliksaar reveals that the Madison project has conducted not one, but two parking studies, albeit both hav ing significant methodological flaws. This left me wondering how many cars can actually be found parked at the current Estonian House parking lot?
The LMM study claims that, “the transit services at the subject site are much more fre quent and connected than the transit services at the site of the existing Estonian House.” This is misleading. For instance, there are four bus routes run ning past the Estonian House to the Broadview subway station. Additionally, the King Street streetcar terminates at Broad view station. At the Madison Ave site, there is only one bus and one streetcar service. With regard to night service, both
subway stations are serviced by the Bloor night bus. However, the Broadview subway station is also serviced by two other night buses. An obvious drawback of the Estonian House is its greater distance from the subway (550m) versus the Madison Ave center (200m). However, the proponents of the Madison Ave center cannot claim that the Broadview subway is ‘too far to walk’ if they are expressly contemplating parking lots as far away as 519 m from the Madison Ave Centre (as is done in the LEA study). An additional factor is that you must walk another 100-200m inside the Spadina station to access Line 1. For the LMM study to draw a valid conclusion regarding public transit, it should have analyzed the public transit op tions at the current Estonian House also, instead of just assuming that they are worse. A fairer conclusion is that the sub way is closer at the Madison Ave site but that there are more public transit options at the existing Estonian House. LEA Consulting (https://www. eesti.ca/pdf/2019/LMMParking Study.pdf) conducted the other
study. A flaw in this study was that Estonian House parking utilization rate was studied in the summer when most of the Estonian House’s activities are shut down. But even though they observed the Estonian House’s parking lot in July, they came up with much more realistic numbers for peak park ing demand (19 on Saturday and 36 on Tuesday). How come there is such a big discrepancy in this regard between LEA and LMM? Especially when the larger parking utilization rates were observed in a period of low demand and the lower rates were observed in a period of high demand. On the positive side, the oc cupancy numbers reported by LEA for the parking spaces around the Madison Ave site seem more realistic. However, there is an important caveat. These parking spots are all near the University of Toronto, which was in summer school mode at the time of the study. As a re sult, the real parking demand around the Madison Ave site has been understated. Both studies have a number of shortcomings in common. Both failed to describe the cost
of the parking spots around the Madison Ave site or any time limitations that they may have. Is a parking spot limited to one hour and is parking after mid night or in rush hour permitted? This makes a big difference in a spot’s usability. As well, both completely failed to consider traffic congestion in the down town core that users of the Madison Ave site would face. Also, the way parking utiliza tion rates were measured by both studies at the Estonian House is suspect. They should have listed what activities were taking place when they ob served the parking lot. This might have explained the strange numbers reported.
The first parking study, con ducted by LMM Engineering, found the maximum utilization at 12 parking spaces on Tues day, between 4:30 and 5:00 pm and the second study by LEA Consulting found maximum utilization of 19 spaces on Saturday at 3:30pm and 36 on Tuesday 4:30pm.
stood that the data of which this study is based on was collected in the month of August, which may differ in patterns from months during the Fall, Winter or Spring, it is further under stood that the existing Estonian House experiences relatively consistent parking demand throughout the year.”
Tuesdays, Sept 17 at 8 pm – 40 cars (no high school attendance)
In his article, Mr. Alliksaar pointed out that the LEA Consulting “parking utilization rate was studied in the summer when most of the Estonian House’s activities are shut down”. LEA Consulting report disagrees with this observation, stating that “While it is under
LMM Engineering study was conducted in March, not during low summer usage. How did LMM Engineering manage to count only 7 cars at the start (7 pm) of a regular school night will likely never be known, but this is the number that was recorded.
Since both studies happened to count cars during low usage periods, the question remained – what is the actual maximum usage? Conveniently, the Esto nian House activities are back after Labour Day and parking on several days were observed within a 2 week period. The peak usage during this period was recorded on Tue, Sept 10 at 7:15 pm with 71 cars in the parking lot. Other peak observation times on different days: Thursday Sept 12 at 7:30 pm – 54 cars Saturday Sept 14 – 100% park ing lot used by ETCU activities
The Great flight…
suitcases. We were led into a camp behind barbed wire, put in a barracks, with me on the stretcher on the floor watching lice crawling up the support poles of three-tiered bunks where mother and grandmother were resting on bare boards in the top bunk.
casual user of the Estonian House knows, its parking lot is routinely overflowing on week nights. The observations of park ing around Madison Ave also contradict everyday experience. For example, they claim that for the 12 street parking spots on Bloor Street between Spadina and St George, only a maxi mum of 4 were o bserved to be occupied on a weekday. Does this seem realistic? The utiliza tion rate for the Spadina Rd. parking lot is more realistic but no mention is made that it will be redeveloped soon.
Estonian Credit Union’s Mission to Road Safety The Estonian Credit Union is celebrating its 65th Anniver sary this year, and in keeping with our community focus, we are giving away reflectors from Estonia to promote road safety awareness. Reflectors have long been common practice in many areas of Europe, especially Estonia. Meant to be pinned to the edge of a coat, the reflector then dangles at the height of a car’s headlights, ensuring pedestrian visibility on dark roads and sidewalks.
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The importance of road safety in Estonia has been emphasized through the increased regularity of police checks late last year, on the look-out for individuals missing their reflector. In addi tion to using reflectors for safety, thrifty Estonians appreciate avoiding the 40 € fine for fail ing to wear one. One of the earliest examples of reflector usage was with Englishman Percy Shaw; at tempting to navigate his vehicle on a dark, foggy evening, he was met with the two reflective eyes of a cat piercing through the darkness on the side of the winding road. It was through this experience that Shaw’s cat’s-eye reflective road studs were born.
Estonia has adopted the safety reflector as a mandatory acces sory to be worn in the dark. In a country where the winter season can seem eternally dark even during the day, the reflec tor is an essential part of a Although his motivation was pedestrian’s everyday attire. For fueled more by his tractor and some, it has also become some equipment visibility in the dark, what of a fashion statement, Finnish farmer Arvi Lehti had a with designer versions available similar idea. His vision evolved for the style and safety- and was expanded to include conscious individual. pedestrian safety. In Finland, to
We traveled in a cargo ship that had a rather mixed cargo: munitions, gasoline, hospital equipment, and even cabbages. Plus the hospital’s nurses, few civilians, lots of Russian POWs, and and a couple hundred soldiers.
day’s popular snowflake reflec tor design was created in 1973. In a time where there are more cars on the road than ever before, being seen in the dark has become a necessity. Ac cord ing to Toronto Police Services, forty-five percent of Toronto’s street injuries and fatalities involve pedestrians. As the fall season begins in September and brings on the darkness faster, the number of pedestrians involved in car- related accidents also increases, bringing the issue of pedestrian visibility to the forefront in
When we arrived in the Danzig port of Neufahrwasser, everybody left. We stayed in the cargo hold and waited for the morning. Suddenly flashlights beamed. Military police deman ded, who are you. Refugees. Soon six Russians POWs were summoned, four carried my stretcher, and two carried my mother’s and grandmother’s Toronto. At the Estonian Credit Union, we hope to increase reflector awareness and the importance of pedestrian road-safety in our community. We encourage everyone to stay safe, and wear a reflector!
In summary, both parking studies have a significant num ber of methodological flaws, both ignore important factors that Estonian House users need to in order to rate the new site’s accessibility, and both report unrepresentative parking utiliza tion rates at the Estonian House. As a result, a more comprehen sive and fair parking study is urgently needed before more money is spent. MARKUS ALLIKSAAR
Thursday Sept 19 at 7:30 pm – 46 cars Saturday Sept 21 at 10:30 am – 51 cars Tuesday Sept 24 at 8:30 pm – 57 cars These observations do not attempt to answer the question whether 0 proposed parking spaces at Madison Ave is a suf ficient number for community use but it does call into ques tion the number of cars ob served by the previous studies. TAUNO MÖLDER
Next morning a physician took a look at me, and hung a ticket on me. The ambulance driver was a good Samaritan. He knew the destination well. He tore up the ticket and in stead drove us to neighboring Gotenhafen, and put me in a municipal hospital. The flight continued within Germany for another seven months. Because the Russians kept coming. The horrors of communism were news to most Americans back in 1949. After all, Uncle Joe had been an ally. As a new arrival, I was asked about what went on in Europe before and after WWII. A lot of people said, it surely could not happen here. I believed it then. Today, I am not so sure.
