Angle parking will soon be gone from Perron Street. Work on changes to Perron Street started on Monday night, right after council decided to move forward with swapping the downtown thoroughfare back to parallel parking at a special council meeting.
Angle parking will soon be gone from Perron Street.
Work on changes to Perron Street started on Monday night, right after council decided to move forward with swapping the downtown thoroughfare back to parallel parking at a special council meeting.
Council had voted to go back to parallel parking on the street last year, but work hadn't started yet and was delayed in anticipation of a vote that would have added extra parking along St. Anne Street before taking out angle parking. The return to parallel parking on Perron Street means a loss of spots.
A majority of council also balked at the proposed changes to St. Anne Street – not just the proposed additional parallel parking spots on the curve near St. Albert Place, but also narrowing the road to one lane and moving up other improvement work to this year.
Staff had proposed the scheduling changes and additional work to optimize road closures and because of the potential for cost savings. Council delayed a decision for a few weeks to better understand the changes.
On Monday, council was divided on whether or not the changes to Perron Street parking should occur as soon as possible or could wait a year.
Mayor Nolan Crouse was worried about throwing away money and having to re-do work next year when other construction work along Perron Street is scheduled. He said one more year of angle parking wasn't a big deal.
“It's not that big of an inconvenience, it's not that big of a safety issue,” he said.
Not everyone agreed, pointing out the public had been surveyed and was in favour of going back to parallel parking.
“There's really not much point in asking if you're not going to do what the public wants,” MacKay said.
Coun. Bob Russell suggested angle parking could be called “anger parking” and said he constantly gets calls from people, wondering when the change would take place.
A vote that has the effect of returning Perron Street to parallel parking was passed in a 4-3 vote.
Council also said no to putting parallel parking spots along St. Anne Street by St. Albert Place. There will eventually be extra spots along the extension of St. Anne Street when that opens which were always part of the plan.
Coun. Cathy Heron wanted to go ahead with the suggested changes to the work along St. Anne Street, noting the proposed projects weren't just parallel parking spots but included other planned improvements to St. Anne that are already in the downtown area redevelopment plan (DARP) like sidewalk widening. The motion would have moved that work to this year instead of in the 2020s.
“If you start picking it apart, then DARP falls apart,” Heron said. The motion was defeated in a 3-4 vote.
Coun. Tim Osborne said his main concern was around the lack of public consultation, and that there are some unanswered questions about the impact of the changes. He'd rather see those questions answered before going ahead.
“It's funny … we can put forward a borrowing bylaw for $30 million and not hear from anyone, but you mention angle parking or parallel parking, and holy cow, people have strong feelings about it,” Osborne said. “It's a fundamental change to the way that we move through the core.”
People surveyed downtown on Tuesday morning were generally in favour of a return to parallel parking.
“I think it was OK originally; they should have left it alone,” said Maurice Belly.
“I think [parallel parking] is safer – better. It was a little awkward before backing up into traffic,” said Gerry Demers.
“I would rather have the parallel. I work downtown and the angle has been very hard to find parking. It's hard to see when you have to park here to get in and out,” said Noel Summerfield.
Debbie Langevin wasn't as sure.
“I have mixed feelings. I don't know if I like one better than the other,” said Langevin. “I find it's easier to park angle; sometimes it's harder to back out. There is more room for people to park when it's angle parking versus parallel parking.”
A couple of related motions to ease parking congestion downtown will be debated in the future. MacKay gave notice of motion to convert some of the city-owned parking spots to public use to support businesses in downtown in a four month trial. Coun. Sheena Hughes also gave notice of motion to try out giving city employees complimentary transit passes to encourage them to bus to work.
