One of the common complaints made about Saskatoon’s downtown is the “lack of parking” available to would-be shoppers and patrons of dining and entertainment establishments. Though in-spite of this common conception of the downtown, it remains a vibrant and well populated area throughout most hours of the week and is bursting at the seams most weekend evenings.

Over the past couple of years, even more parking has been added to the downtown at the expense of some buildings – the old Folk’s Curling building (20th and 2nd Ave), the corner of 5th Ave and 24th St, and the old Chinese restaurant just north of 2nd Ave and 22nd St (lost to a fire originally, but not rebuilt to date).

To examine the charge of the lack of parking in downtown Saskatoon I decided to do a detailed assessment of all surface parking space, both public and private property. For these purposes I have defined downtown as the parcel of land bordered by 25th St. W. to the north, Idylwyld Dr to the west, and the river to the south and east. Using Google Maps, Corel Draw, and Google Streetview, I stitched together a composite map of this area. I then systematically outlined More >