Dear editor:

There is something wonderfully municipal about our approach to parking.

Council gives municipal accommodation tax revenue to a tourism marketing agency. The agency advertises Niagara-on-the-Lake. Visitors arrive, followed by their cars. Residents complain, taxpayers fund another parking study — and then, apparently, we advertise some more.

Perhaps there is a less expensive solution.

Niagara-on-the-Lake does not lack tourists on peak summer weekends. It lacks space.

This is not only an Old Town problem. Rural roads now carry growing numbers of visitors alongside farm equipment, cyclists, farmworkers and residents, in a municipality bounded by protected farmland, parks, the lake and the river.

That distinction matters.

We already have an outlet mall. Old Town should not become another one. There is no magical vacant parking field behind Queen Street — only homes, heritage streets, parks and neighbourhoods where people actually live.

So why do we act as though every additional visitor is automatically a public good?

Tourism is not one thing. A visitor who stays two nights, parks once, walks, sees a play, has dinner, tours wineries and shops at locally owned businesses brings substantial value.

A visitor who drives into Old Town, circles for parking, buys an ice cream, takes a photograph and leaves brings considerably less.

Yet both count equally in a visitor count statistic.

Perhaps we should stop counting heads and start counting value.

The designated tourism agency should be judged by whether it attracts visitors who stay longer, spend more, travel outside peak periods and explore more of Niagara-on-the-Lake — not simply by whether more people arrive.

That requires council to set the right mandate. Council chose the agency and decided to give it municipal accommodation tax revenue. If its goals and incentives are wrong, that is not merely an agency problem. It is a governance problem.

And when Old Town is already full?

We could try the revolutionary strategy of not using municipal accommodation tax money to invite more peak-period day-trippers.

No expropriation. No parking garage. No shuttle study. No new signs explaining that the parking lot is full. And almost no taxpayer cost.

Tourism should serve Niagara-on-the-Lake — not require Niagara-on-the-Lake to be redesigned for an unlimited number of tourists.

Before solving the parking shortage, perhaps we should stop manufacturing it.

Invite guests, not traffic.

Bruce Gitelman
Old Town