Correction - Market Square at Church and Front has $6.00 parking - there is a Dominon grocery store above the parkade. The entrance is on the east side of Church.

There is parking at Bell Trinity Square at 483 Bay Street, across from Nathan Phillips. It's $6 / day on the weekends, and we often park there when we are downtown. It's very convenient to the Eaton Centre. I think it's quite expensive during the weekdays - probably $17 - $20, and I'm not sure what the rate would be after 6 PM during the week. But it's a good deal on the weekends.

Parking underneatht he downtown office towers reanges from expensive to really expensive, during the day, during the week.

BEWARE; some lots have no daily maxim,um, and at $6 per half hour, you can hit $80 if there for an all-day meeting.

BARGAIN: under the downtown office towers in the evening and weekends.

OTHER INFO: once you cat a couple of blocks out of the real downtown core, prices drop. The really expensive area is inside a box bounded by Front across the south, Church up the east, and Simcoe up the west (just a block west of University AVenue)

In the Entertainment district (roughly the area south of Queen and west of University, week day prices start fairly low for 6am to 8pm early in the morning. Perhaps $8 for the day. Then as the lots fill up, prices change. The ticket-takers have signins int heir offices with all the numbers they need to raise prices.

Around 10am, prices often go to $10, except on Wednesdays, when they go hihger. That's matinee day at the live theatres.

By mid-afternoon on a day with a week-day baseball cgame, a convention at the convention center and a matinee, prices can hiot $20-25 in the afternoon, for the rest of the day, until 6pm.

Again, after 6 until the next mporning, prices vary depending on what's happening in the neighborhood. Baseball afternoons mean higher prices. This (after 6) is when it's best to park under the big office buildings.

Some of the street parking ticket kiosks are $3 an hour, and some are $2. In addition to tickets, check the times that parking is forbidden. Generally the tow trucks get your car within 15-20 minutes of the day-time parking ending and rush hour restrictions beginning. On some street, rush hour starts at 3:30 and on others it is 4 pm. (long, complicated political story about why.)

BAK

Here's some additional info which I hope may be helpful as well. I live about an hour away from Toronto and travel there quite frequently for business and pleasure. If you require parking in the downtown core, the best and cheapest place I've found is a city garage located at the Esplanade, behind the Novotel - downtown hotel. Rates there are $9 per day and it's covered and secure. This is a great location if you're attending a hockey game, and is a short walk to baseball and the theatre district. Plenty of restaurants on the Esplanade as well.

Another option I use for personal visits to Toronto where I'm staying overnight downtown for a day or two, or if I just want to save myself the stress and congestion of the downtown traffic, is to park at the end of the line of the TTC subway line and take the subway into downtown. Cost is $3 per person ($2.50 with volume purchase) to ride the subway and parking at most subway stations near the end of the lines is free after 3 pm on weekdays and all weekends. I can understand the subway can be a little intimidating, but do your research of stops and transfer stations and it's really quite easy and safe to navigate/use.

Hope this helps!

Christina16: Do you know any lots near TTC tube stations that allow overnight parking? The ones I checked had no-parking periods in the early morning hours, I suppose to deter tourist like me who want to stay for a couple of days.

I thought Market Square was Private Parking for residents of Market Squear only.
Is there a separate "public" parking garage?

Yes, there is public parking at Market Square; entrance is on Church Street.

Good to know!

When we drove up from the US to do the Via Rail Toronto/Vancouver (and return after 3 days,) I did a fair amount of research on this. There's a Green Park garage at 2 Church St. It's got 2008 spaces, the rates were reasonable, and there were a couple nice bar-and-grills just outside the entrance. (Needed a drink after coming up from PA.)

I think the charge was for about 10 days, and came to about $156. It would have been considerably more had we stayed near the train station. We used a cab to and from said station.