Cars may return to Hamilton’s Garden Place

Cars through Garden Place could be part of the answer to the CBD’s parking problem, city councillor Geoff Taylor says.

The first-time councillor is working to improve parking in the central city, after it was a common complaint he heard while campaigning for his seat last year.

He is chairman of the intercity parking task force, which will go back to the council in June with a plan to solve the parking issue.

Part of this solution will involve finding more parking spots.

“There’s a proposal in our plans, for example, to put a driving lane through Garden Place,” Taylor said.

“It would be a shared pedestrian and car lane, and you might get eight or 10 parks there.”

Taylor thinks it could be a good option, but is aware that the same idea was unpopular when it was proposed back in 2008.

Many Hamiltonians felt strongly that there should be no traffic in Garden Place.

“I’m quite wary of Garden Place because I don’t know, cars in Garden Place? It’s a real special place to people,” he said.

 Taylor is also considering other ways of improving parking in the CBD.

He is keen to replace the “outdated” parking meters around town, and is looking at introducing sensors similar to those used in parks at The Base.

“I’m trying to introduce two hours of free parking,” Taylor said. “That’s a bit controversial at the moment.”

But Taylor is happy to keep pushing for it.

“I’m hoping that will help to rejuvenate the city,” he said.

“I’m pretty confident that we can introduce some kind of free parking.”

Sue Thompson, owner of Keen on Piercings in Garden Place, agrees that a road through Garden Place could be a good idea as long as it brought parking spaces with it.

She said Garden Place needed attention to make it attractive to more people.

 “It’s a social thing that needs more addressing,” Thompson said.

“Putting a road through would be just putting a band aid on it,” she said.

 “It has improved but people still think it’s a bad place.” 

Taylor experienced first-hand some distressing sights in Garden Place while at a meeting there.

“There was a group of about 10 guys and one of them was vomiting, projectile vomiting the whole time I was in there…it’s not a good look.”

Taylor said Garden Place was a prominent part of town but  he would be reluctant for the council to spend huge amounts redoing the area.

 “They’ve done a number of upgrades in previous years but we never seem to be any further ahead. It still seems to be quite empty.

“It’s a really hard one. We don’t seem to be able to find the perfect answer to that.”