It is nice to know that the US is not the only North American country with dysfunctional station-area planning. Toronto “GO” is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into its rail stations — mostly for parking garages:
GO Transit is in the process of erecting four massive parking structures in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area] – in addition to six that are already in use at Oakville, Aldershot, Burlington, Whitby, Centennial and Aurora rail stations – to add more than 6,100 spaces. These public infrastructure projects will bring the number of parking spaces at GTA GO Stations to more than 61,000.
“Since 2003, we’ve added more than 20,000 parking spaces [covered and open air] across the system.”
10 new parking garages, costing anywhere from $40-70 million apiece. But don’t worry — as “mock” Leed Certified structures they are environmentally sustainable:
Because they are open-air structures, the garages could not formally be certified as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings. “But we still wanted to go for a mock LEED rating and call it sustainable. So we used all the sustainable initiatives that we would need if the building could be certified,” Mr. Hunter said.
Here is an aerial view of the Ajax station, which is getting a 6-level 1,300 parking space garage:
Systemic Failure 
It sucks to be in the furthest away parking space. A passenger who drives to this kind of parking lot must consider several delay factors in planning what time they should leave home for the lot: 1) how long it will take to drive to the lot, 2) find a parking space, 3) walk to the platform. All of which can vary daily.
If you knew anything about GO Transit, you’ll know that their ridership has gone through the roof – their 10 car trains (double that of Caltrain) are nearly standing room only during the rush hours. It’s a clear commute alternative to sitting on the 401, DVP and GE. Also, if you knew anything about Ajax, it’s nothing more than a sprawling bedroom community with tract homes and ‘McMansions’. Why would anyone move to Ajax to live in station-area apartments to endure a 39-60 minute train commute when they can live in Toronto and other high density locations along their subway system?
Because the real estate is cheaper in Ajax and because many people grew up in Durham (the area), have always lived in Durham, have all their friends in Durham, often have a spouse who works in Durham, yet still value access to downtown Toronto for work, study, or pleasure.
The whole point is that these massive parking garages are massively expensive when you consider that this is most valuable land in Ajax that would allow millions in property tax revenue. With the revenues from higher property values across the board, it would be relatively simple and cheap to fund direct shuttles from the outlying subdivisions to the station.
For those who want to drive, they should pay the true cost of parking (probably around $5/day). Local buses will be packed when it starts costing $100/mo to park at the station! This increased ridership will enable awesome frequency that will make the very idea of a parking garage obsolete.
Not being from Toronto, people pay to park here right? I mean, multi-deck parking structures are not cheap to build, and the rail is usually subsidised already.
No charge for parking: