Recommend places to park in Toronto.

I know this sounds like a wierd request, but Brynda and I are going to Torono at the end of the month. We booked a hotel through Priceline but when we went to the hotel website we found out that it would be $28 (I’m asuming Canadian) per day to park in their garage. That is just daylight robbery, IMHO.

The hotel is on Queen Street West and we would like somewhere to leave the car that is within easy walking distance of the hotel. On the hotel website, they suggest using Toronto City Hall parking which they say is just across the street.

Does anyone know anywhere that is not going to cost an arm and a leg?

Welcome to Toronto!

Where on Queen Street West? It’s a long street. If they’re talking about City Hall, it might be the Sheraton, which is that vast slab that faces City Hall across Nathan Phillips square. If so, you’ll be within walking distance of all the attractions of the downtown core.

Googling on “Toronto parking” revealed the website of the city-run Toronto Parking Authority.
Nearest of their car parks is at City Hall, under Nathan Phillips Square, with an entrance onto Queen Street directly across from the Sheraton. They charge a max of $18 per day. This is less expensive than most on-street parking.

The next nearest is the new car park under Dundas Square, which charges a max of $13 per day. Its entrance is east of Yonge at the southeast corner of the square next to Victoria Street. It’s very convenient to Yonge Street and shopping, but it’s about a three or four block walk from the Sheraton.

From all appearances these lots permit 24-hour or long-term parking, but I can’t seem to confirm this on the TPA site.

What things are you interested in seeing? If you’re here on a weekend, I could be an impromptu tour guide… at least as far as interesting buildings and stuff go. If you’re looking for clubs or pubs, I’ll have to defer to other TronnaDopers with greater experience in those areas. :slight_smile:

Wow, thanks, Sunspace! You got the hotel in one, so the links you provided are very helpful. Either of those would probably work for us.

We don’t know Toronto at all (I went once, but it was a short business-type trip, so I didn’t see much), so some advice–and tour-guiding, if you are serious–would be great. I would like to check out the halfprice theater ticket place and maybe go see a show, and we want to go up the CN tower, but other than that, we are pretty clueless and aside from scoring a good price on a hotel room, we haven’t done anything yet. Rick found a tourism site, but we haven’t really poked around it yet. Any recommendations you or other folks might have would be greatly appreciated.

We are arriving late on Friday, August 29 and leaving about noon on Monday, September 1.

On McCaul Street (a 10 minute walk from your hotel) between Queen and Dundas is underground parking beneath “The Grange” (used to be stores, now is condos). They have a weekend flat rate of $5 or $6 a day for Saturdays and Sundays.

(I’m not sure if you have to pay another $5 or $6 overnight – I haven’t parked overnight there in awhile.)

The Grange parking is hard to miss, it’s right across the street from the tall yellow crane (they are renovating the Ontario College of Art and Design). The entrance to the underGrange parking is right across the street from the crane.

The Grange is beside the Art Gallery of Ontario (Dundas W.) and just up from CityTV/Speaker’s Corner, and a 10 minute walk from Kensingtone Market.

ahem

“Kensington” (I do live here, I swear I just hit an extra key!)

Look at this page first: Toronto links. Lots and LOTS of links.

Are you in town for Torcon 3, the 61st World Science Fiction Convention? :slight_smile: I wanted to go, but it’s 250 dollars! On the other hand, it’s the only time in a generation that one of these things is actually local to me…

If I can scrape up the money, I may go to it; otherwise, I’m free. It’s a long weekend, so there’ll probably be a lot going on.

What things besides the CN tower and theatre are you interested in? Note that the Sheraton is right next to the new opera house (note also that the new opera house is, so far, an unfinished hole in the ground). Nearby are City Hall, the funky shops along Queen Street West, the Museum of Television, the Eaton Centre, and the US Consulate (just in case–are you from the States?).

A little further away are the Royal Ontario Museum, the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, the “Platinum Kilometre” (the ultra-expensive shops along Bloor Street West and in Yorkville), Harbourfront and the ferries to the Islands (with the carfree neighbourhood on Ward’s Island).

The city of Toronto.
What’s on in August.
What’s on in September.
Eaton Centre tourist info. There is an Ontario tourist office in the Eaton Centre.

I bow to Eats_Crayons on the subject of parking, mostly because I don’t have a car. :slight_smile: The Village by the Grange, a mixed-use development, is right across the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Ontario College of Art and Design; just on the other side of these, the oldest Chinatown in Toronto begins.

Clubs, theatres, and such… many of these are located in what is now called “the Entertainment District”, roughly along John Street between Queen and Front Street (north of the Convention Centre).

East of Yonge on Front is the Hummingbird Centre (ballet, for now) and a very walkable district. Just bejond this area eastwards is the new Distillery District, where now condos and art galleries are appearing amidst the brick buildings and cobbled streets of the old Gooderham and Worts distillery.

Much further east and west of downtown are the Eastern and Western Beaches. The Eastern Beaches are next to the attractive neighbourhood known as The Beaches. The Western Beaches are just south of High Park, one of my favourite places in the city.

You can use the Queen streetcar to get to all of these. A day pass costs $7.75 and on Sundays and statutory holidays is good for two adults.

Purely anecdotal, but–

I wouldn’t park in some of the underground lots in Chinatown, if I were you. My parents had their car broken into a few years ago, and lots of stuff was stolen. I doubt you will, being that it’s not really that near Queen West, but just in case.

Sunspace has done a great job of telling you all about the cool things in Toronto. It’s my favorite city on earth! You’ll have a blast!

Wrong Girl this is true. The Grange however is where I’ve parked for the better part of three years and never had a single problem (aside from this one guy who pees in the southern most stairwell). It’s also a few blocks shy of Chinatown.

The are some underground lots right in Chinatown (and under Kensington Market) and there is no way I’d park there. There are some “organized gangs” (mostly sneaky teens) that are real pros.

Sniffs_Markers works in film, and shooting in Chinatown they got to watch such a group at work – it was amazing, they were in and out of locked cars within minutes! Long gone by the time the cops could ever get there.

The Ontario Science Centre is a lot of fun too, if you want to go a bit further out of your way (but since you have a car, it’s easily driveable). It’s great for kids, but adults usually have a blast, too!

http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/

They have a parking lot, but last time I went, it was with a tour bus, so I don’t know what they charge. It seems that there is a kite-fest that weekend that looks like fun.

Also, spend an hour in the shoe museum. It’s rediculously silly, but cheap (4$ each, I think) and actually kind of neat to see a bunch of shoes! http://www.batashoemuseum.ca/

As for parking, I don’t know much about it! I just park at a friends’ house when I go!

Yep, that’s where they got nailed. This Grange place sounds fine, though. :slight_smile:

I hope the OP doesn’t mind if I introduce a minor hijack in here - I’ll probably start a thread about it later if things go as I hope they will, but I digress.

I could very well be moving to Toronto in a short while. I’m hearing back about a job there next week (making the switch from working in video games to feature film! Woohoo) and I was wondering if all you wonderful Torontonians could tell me if the area the office is in is worth living in as well…

It’s at Wellington and Brant Place (the nearest big intersections are King St. W and Spadina Ave). Nice 'hood? Good place to live? Good party area? Would I need a car?

Again - sorry for a hijack but this seemed to opportune to pass up. :slight_smile:

-n

Good party area. Right near the club district. I don’t know about crime and that, but you’ll be able to eat enormous quatities of Chinese and Vietnamese food.

Rick, check out chowhond.com, in their “Toronto” messageboard, for food suggestions near the Sheraton. I really like a whole bunch of restaurants on Queen West, and you can get excellent, knowledgeable suggestions at that site. It’s (Queen West is) a fun area, and you should have a great time.

Thanks for all the good suggestions, everyone. At this point, we are thinking CN tower, the shoe museum (I like that one more than Rick, but he is willing), the air show (probably just watch from a convenient location), Casa Loma, and maybe a boat tour.

I just posted at chowhound, so maybe we will get some good suggestions.

We are really looking forward to this trip. :slight_smile:

You can get an interesting view of the air show from anywhere in the Western Beaches (walking distance from my place!). The best view is from as close to the CNE grounds as you can get. You coud even pay to get into the CNE and receive the best view!

Niggle, the King and Spadina area is kind of a border area. It’s just south of the Fashion District (once the home of sweatshops, clothing manufacturers, and furriers; a few still hold on) and Chinatown. It is just west of the Entertainment District, and just north of Harbourfront.

Nearby, just off Spadina north of Front Street, is Clarence Square, which I find rather sad: the park that fills the square remains, but the row houses that used to surround it are almost all gone, and across the parking lots that replaced them glow the neon lights of the Entertainment District. One row of townhouses remains, standing awkwardly along the north side of the square.

The square is part of the remains of an 1840s plan to develop the area. Several such squares and connecting avenues were built, and a promenade and parks were planned along Front Street (which at that time was next to the shore of the lake). Then in the 1850s, the railways came through, cut the area off from the lake, and surrounded it with nineteenth-century red-brick industry.

Further west on King, over towards is an area of these nineteenth-century warehouses that is rapidly gentrifying; I believe this is known as the Liberty District or Liberty Triangle, after a street in the area. During the tech boom they were trying to attract all kinds of ‘New Economy’ outfits to the area; I’m not sure how effective that was, or what it’s like now.

Looking at a map, I see that Wellington is the street that connects Clarence Square to Victoria Square, the other surviving square from this plan. Brant Place is on the south side of King, a block west of Spadina. Right in the middle of the area.

You will not need a car unless your job requires it. You’ll be almost downtown, and it’ll be easy to get anywhere: although the King streetcar can be mindbogglingly-slow during rush hour, the Spadina streetcar runs on a reserved right-of-way out of traffic, and connects to the Spadina subway station at one and and Union Station at the other).

If you can afford it, there are plenty of condos for sale or rent in the area, including the vast Cityplace development which is slowly remaking the Railway Lands. If you can’t afford it, there are affordable (for Toronto) older apartments for rent further west along Queen. Just watch out: some of the areas between Dufferin and Roncesvalles can be a little rough.

bump
RickQ and Brynda, still visiting this weekend?

Sunspace, we are still coming this weekend. I thought this thread was dead, so I posted a new thread about what to do here.