Where do people park when they come downtown to an event at the MTS Centre? This is certainly the most frequently asked question surrounding the location of the new sports and entertainment centre. The answer is quite simple: People who decide to drive their cars to MTS Centre events park on the street, at parking meters, in surface parking lots, and in heated indoor parkades - all located within easy walking distance of the new entertainment centre.
Winnipeg's downtown area has an abundance of parking for a city of 645,000 people. There are currently some 30,000 parking stalls in the downtown and, while this number rises and falls with new downtown development, the supply has remained very consistent in recent years. Some 7,000 of the spaces are within a five-minute walk of the MTS Centre site while there are more than 13,000 off street parking spaces within a ten-minute walking contour. There are also 2,000 metered parking spots on the streets within this contour.
All of these spaces are readily available for evening and weekend event parking at MTS Centre since they are mainly used for business or shopping in daytime hours during weekdays. For the most part, MTS Centre events take place during the evenings and on week-ends. Now that the MTS Centre has opened, parking has rationalized and reorganized to support the facility.
Two event scenarios have been selected to illustrate the abundance of parking in the area surrounding MTS Centre to handle the new level of activity. The first scenario is sold-out attendance at Manitoba Moose hockey games which is 8,812 people in the seats (with the upper bowl curtained off). The second scenario assumes a full sell-out of MTS Centre with 16,345 people on hand for a centre stage in-the-round concert.
A couple of factors need to be assumed to determine parking and traffic demands on downtown infrastructure around MTS Centre. Not everyone will arrive by car. Depending on the type of event, Winnipeg Transit estimates that 15% - 25% of attendees will choose the convenience of Transit. The second assumption is that 2.4 people will arrive per car. That number is the accepted industry standard number for people arriving at sports and entertainment events in each vehicle.
The resulting parking demand is for 3,121 vehicles for a sold-out hockey game and parking requirement for 5,789 vehicles for the maximum seating sell-out scenario. Using these calculations, there are more than enough places to park every vehicle arriving for a Moose hockey game within a five minute walk and enough parking for a maximum capacity sold out event within an eight to ten minute walk of MTS Centre.
The 7,000 available parking spaces within a five minute walk include 2,270 spaces that are indoors and/or heated (including the two cityplace parkades on Hargrave Street, the underground Portage Place Shopping Centre parking and the Millennium Library parkade. A little farther away, just outside the five minute walking contour but connected to MTS Centre by the Skywalk, the Winnipeg Square parkade offers another heated indoor parking option.
Should conflicting events occur at the Convention Centre, City Place, Portage Place, The Bay or any of the downtown hotels, all of the anticipated parking demand for the Entertainment Centre can still be met by the 13,000 parking spaces within a ten minute walk of the MTS Centre.
While True North estimates it holds more than 131 events each year, the majority of sports and entertainment shows attract fewer than 8,812 patrons and, on average, no more than ten events will attract crowds of more than 10,000 people.
Many new visitors to downtown will not be immediately familiar with the many parking options available. The best plan is to research parking in advance, leave for the event early and have a planned destination to park in mind. The option is to explore the Transit alternative.
A separate frequently asked question concerns the potential for traffic congestion on downtown Winnipeg Streets before and after MTS Centre events. The fact is that there is considerably less congestion downtown than existed previously around the Polo Park site of the Winnipeg Arena; this former site experienced growing traffic snarls due to the location of more big box retailing in the area.
Downtown Winnipeg is designed to accommodate a lot of people and a lot of traffic. More than 68,000 vehicles transport people downtown to work every day and on a normal day traffic loads on streets through rush hours is quite manageable by urban standards. As happens with workday rush hours, 90% of the traffic generated by MTS Centre is expected to arrive and depart in a one-hour period before and after an event.
The simplified conclusion about traffic congestion around MTS Centre events is that the downtown area has four times the traffic capacity than MTS Centre generates when attendance is at full capacity. Since most events at MTS Centre occur on evenings and weekends and do not conflict with workdays and hours, there's ample capability in the street system to handle the traffic, even for sold out maximum attendances.
Also, because parking is available at a great many separate parking lots within walking distance, traffic disperses from a number of locations following a game or concert rather than from one large parking area with limited exits. In addition to the indoor lots already named, there are parkades at the Radisson Hotel, the Winnipeg Convention Centre, the Delta Hotel and the Ramada Marlborough. There may be very short "spot" traffic clumps in the vicinity of these lots, but those will quickly diffuse as the patrons to events make their way out of the downtown.
True North Sports & Entertainment and Ticketmaster have joined forces to offer an easy way to guarantee a downtown parking spot for a Moose hockey game or a concert for patrons who simply enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing that you can drive to a pre-arranged downtown parking location with a guaranteed stall for your vehicle.
You can purchase prepaid MTS Centre Parking at any of four designated lots (Portage Place, City Place, Millennium Library or Winnipeg Square). The parking tickets have a barcode that is scanned at the parking lot. The system allows patrons to pre-purchase parking over the internet (including "print-at-home"), at ticket outlets, or at the MTS Centre box offices. MTS Centre is the first venue in Canada to pre-sell parking in this manner. Parking prices for all events is $3.00, $5.00 or $7.00 (plus service charge) depending on the lot location and the event.
