With many events happening in Steinbach's downtown area this weekend at the arenas, curling club and movie theatre, and the recent release of the city's survey results regarding a possible performing arts centre, concerns have been raised in regards to parking downtown.

From the SteinbachOnline Facebook page (used with permission): 

Lorna Sobering from Steinbach says, "We've been to a lot of arenas in the past ten years and have never seen one with worse parking. It's an embarrassment actually."

Carrie Palmer says, "With 3 kids involved in hockey/ringette, I spend a considerable amount of time at the arena, the parking situation is such an issue! What bothers me the most is it's not even always possible to drop your children off at the doors of the TG side. The way they designed those parking stalls, if they are all full you are left having to back your vehicle out causing more problems and potentially an accident! Poor, poor planning in my opinion. I will be at the rink this weekend for the Novice tournament and am definitely not looking forward to parking all weekend."

Councillors from the City of Steinbach were asked individually what they thought of the arena parking situation.

Deputy Mayor John Fehr says he feels this weekend will be a good test for the City. "With the arena, curling rink and theatre downtown, there is potential for up to 1,500 people in an evening. We need 600 parking stalls and I doubt we have 100 of our own.”

Councillor Earl Funk says, “when you're developing an arena or an event centre, it's hard to plan for that one or two or three in a year huge events where it really taxes the parking and the facility, so sometimes you have to plan ahead and do what's gonna work really well most of the time, and just deal with some really tough times.”

Councillor Jac Siemens says, “I have a big concern with the parking issues downtown. With the arena, the business community interacting on the high traffic weekends, like this weekend coming up with all the events. With the theatre being busy, curling bonspiels and all these things happening simultaneously, the city doesn't own a parking lot downtown anymore. I think people need to understand that you have to park a little farther away. When there's a larger event, there's parking available on Main Street and it's one block over to the facility.”

Councillor Susan Penner says, “ I myself and council realizes this is an issue we need to address. One of the things I believe we need to do is talk to the SCU to see if there's a way maybe we can purchase the land that they own beside the arena, maybe we need to add parking on the other side of the movie theatre.”

Councillors Michael Zwaagstra and Carri Penner were unavailable for comment.  

Read more:

Parking A Concern For Weekend Hockey Tournament