Council narrowly approved a recommendation that will soon ban on-street parking during significant winter storms at their regular meeting on Monday night.
A 3-2 vote agreed with the recommendation of operations and facilities manager, Travis Rob to amend the town’s Traffic Control Bylaw to include a provision banning on-street parking throughout the town for the duration of declared significant weather events.
Rob said the ban will help town crews clear snow according to the province’s Minimum Maintenance Standards, as there will be no parked cars obstructing roadways.
During declared significant weather events there will be no parking from 7:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.
Rob said the most preferable option for the town would be to enforce a town-wide winter parking ban 24/7, so crews can better clear roadways following smaller weather events.
“Given that some people don’t have alternative parking arrangements, it’s not necessarily a viable option,” he noted.
However, during significant weather events, town residents are asked to find alternative parking arrangements.
“It is hoped that for those few residents that don’t have an alternative parking solution, either they work to establish an alternative parking solution–park at their neighbours, park at a friends–just to allow us to get through on the big events and get the roads cleared,” Rob said.
“We’re talking, typically our declarations are over a couple of days, so maybe two nights that the ban would be in effect.”
Rob says the ban would not include the downtown core because a ban on overnight parking is already in place
A more formal bylaw regarding the issue will come back to council at a later date.
