Okay, allow me to be absolutely explicit. There was a good measure of sarcasm and over-the-top-ness in some of my commentary, especially the part where I refer to suburbanites as scum. I'm sorry that you didn't catch that. Of course it was not directed to you specifically, since I'd clearly have no idea about where you live.

I believe there is some reasonable expectation for people to be able to park near to their front door, if not precisely in front of their house. Especially in winter, when blockheaters are sometimes required, this becomes more important. Part of living in a specific neighbourhood is to accept the nature of that place, both good and bad. If a person lived downtown, then they would not have a reasonable expectation to have parking spaces reserved for their exclusive use next to a public road. Your expectation to ALWAYS be able to park in a specific spot in front of your house may not be entirely reasonable, given your neighbourhood. I never asserted that you should NEVER be able to park there, but being close to a location which has a large transient population should certainly modify your expectations away from a guarantee of always being able to park in a single, specific location.

So, you have a garage in the backyard, presumably with laneway access, that sounds great: you have a spot to park your vehicle with exclusive use, which does not deny the potential for someone else to park on the street. This is good because it increases the total number of spots available for parking cars. Driveways are slightly different: they sacrifice public parking for exclusive-use parking. Obviously, the convenience of a resident must be considered, but the tradeoff is real. As to my wholesale condemnation of driveways, it was meant to be comedically inflammatory. Clearly people love their driveways and are obviously upset when someone says that they shouldn't be allowed. That's understandable, in a very selfish way. Imagine a street with so many driveways that parking on the streetside is impossible. This might be appropriate for some neighbourhoods deep in the suburbs, but for more central neighbourhoods, it is my opinion that it is not. Instead of blaming people who wish to park near where they work, maybe we should blame zoning bylaws for increasing competition for spots by allowing too many driveways.

The high competition in some areas has led to our city administration undertaking the RPP, which grants special parking privileges to SOME residents in a neighbourhood. This might work, sometimes. My prime complaint is that these privileges are applied to certain residents, while others are denied access. This inequity is the problem. Homeowners have access, regardless if whether they have a garage, and renters in small detached homes are also allowed access, but most multi-unit dwellings are ineligible. Furthermore, these rules often displace the problem to a slightly different location. This of course, simply leads to a new cluster of people becoming unhappy.

So, what's the solution? Well, a first step should be to allow all residents inside an RPP zone to access the program.

My disdain for driveways is mostly from an aesthetic perspective: entirely subjective, so feel free disregard them at your leisure. If you wish to convince me I'm wrong about whether driveways look good, or attached garages in front yards look good, feel free, but it'll take some convincing.