Citywide Parking Strategy

The City of Markham is growing rapidly. Over the past 20 years, the population has gone up from 208,000 residents to more than 353,000. It’s important to understand how residents travel into and out of the city. Parking is a big part of Markham’s transportation network. It impacts our community, such as how people travel, where development occurs, affordability, land use and more.

Background

The City of Markham’s Official Plan and the 2020-2023 Strategic Plan - Building Markham’s Future Together, sets out goals relating to the environment, housing affordability and transportation. Parking plays a key role in achieving those goals.

Markham is made up of unique areas, and not all of them have the same transportation or parking needs. Our Citywide Parking Strategy will look at all these differences while working to meet our strategic goals.

What is a Parking Strategy?

A Citywide Parking Strategy is a document that brings together City requirements or recommendations related to the management of a parking system.

The City of Markham is developing a Citywide Parking Strategy to align with the goals of the City’s Strategic Plan relating to parking and its associated relationship with the natural environment, land use planning and the City’s transportation system. The City is seeking public and stakeholder feedback to create a vision for parking in the City, to assess the current parking conditions and prepare a set of recommendations for City Council consideration in 2024. The goal is to improve t the overall parking experience for our residents and visitors.

The Strategy will:

• Review current parking conditions in the City. This includes programs, infrastructure and policies that tell us how and when parking spaces are used.
• Investigate the availability, sustainability, technology, financial and operations of parking.
• Study how parking impacts the use of transit, walking and cycling.
• Give recommendations and direction on how these findings can be put into practice.

Get Involved

We value your input in developing a parking strategy that caters to the unique needs of the City and it’s various neighbourhoods and Centres. To ensure we gather a diverse range of perspectives, City Staff will be in the community this summer to hear directly from you about your ideas on parking strategy.

Please find us at the following pop-up locations:

• July 27, 12 pm to 4 pm, Thornhill Community Centre
• August 3, 3 pm to 7 pm, Cornell Community Centre
• August 10, 3 pm to 7 pm, Milliken Mills Community Centre

Parking plays an important role in enhancing access and mobility throughout the City. We want to understand how you move around the city and how you wish to get around in the future. In addition to community pop-ups, we also invite you to share your thoughts and ideas online (see below).

Ways To Get Involved

1. Stay Updated: Save this website to your browser favorites and/or subscribe to project updates using the “Stay Informed” icon above.
2. Share Your Experience: Using the Places Tool, share your experience by dropping a pin on the map to identify your everyday destinations, current and future parking needs, or answer some of the questions provided!
3. Take a Quick Poll: We’ve created a community poll to gather feedback on how you envision parking in Markham and what we need to focus on in the future.