Parking lots, and their defenders

It has been pointed out by this blog and elsewhere, that "you only need to spend a few seconds with Google Maps," Bartley Kives writes today, "to see how downtown Winnipeg resembles a patchwork of unimproved gravel and concrete."

And just to save readers those few seconds, I present for the umpteenth time, a guide to off-street parking spaces in Winnipeg's central business district. This is circa 2007, but with a few exceptions represents the parking situation today today. Red is surface lots, yellow is parking garages, blue is underground parkades.



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More from the it would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic file, the geezer brahmins and dress-up buffoons that have come to be the face of the heritage preservation movement in this city, are now half way toward reaching the $20 million they now need to build an interpretive centre at Upper Fort Garry.

But the good news is, they are over two-thirds of the way toward raising the $14.5-million they needed for the centre in 2009, and have raised three times the $3.5-m they said they needed in 2008. The birthplace of Winnipeg's inertia-fueled white elephants? Hardly, but one shameful, far-from-completed chapter to be sure.