Re: Article “Next steps taken in Downtown Master Plan,” which appeared in the April 24 edition of Northern Life.

I found your story on the Downtown Master Plan most interesting. The overall write-up has a lot of very good insights on what the city’s planning department is looking into.

City council has one major stumbling block to overcome in order for this Master Plan to become a success, and that is the downtown parking issue.
Parking meters are going up in price.

There’s a company that boots cars that may be parking where they should not be parking, and the cost to get that boot off one’s car is $100 cash.

This downtown parking issue has been in the overall public mindset for well over 35 years, and I know personally some of my friends hate to go downtown because of the parking meters and lack of overall parking.

They would rather do their shopping in the big malls or at the other big box stores where the parking is free.

So until city council makes parking 100 per cent free downtown, the public will keep doing what they are doing now.

One other parking issue the public hates is at the Sudbury Regional Hospital. That was a disaster from the beginning. It went way over budget, in the millions of dollars, and the planners had no foresight to put in the overall cost of a parking lot big enough to handle all the cars coming and going.

Why did they not use the space going up in the sky to build a six-level-high parking lot, that could park a good many thousand or more cars, is beyond me.

So, yes, this city has a parking issue big time, and until they tackle that issue, the Downtown Master Plan will be in doubt.

Lorne Johnson
Greater Sudbury

Posted by Vivian Scinto