An end might be in sight for residents in Erin Ridge who have been vexed by the use of Ellesmere Drive as a park and ride.
“It looks like it’s solved,” said Coun. Bob Russell. He said he’s been told that starting next week, there should be no more vehicles from refinery workers who were parking along Ellesmere Drive to catch a bus service that transports them to the work site.
It turns out that the drive was selected as a bus stop for workers heading up to North West Redwater Partnership’s Sturgeon Refinery.
Kathy Van Hoof lives on a street just off of Ellesmere Drive.
“Everybody who lives in here has to drive on Ellesmere to get out,” she said. “It’s something that affects this whole little area.”
The issues arise from the fact that the street is a local, narrow road and also fairly curvy. The parked vehicles are creating visibility issues, and when there were vehicles parked on either side of the road, only one vehicle could get through at a time.
Recently she’s noticed the vehicles have moved to parking on just one side of the road, which she said does help.
While the road is a public street, which means public parking is allowed, residents were hoping the city could persuade the company to move the unofficial park and ride elsewhere.
“It’s a great idea to take your workers up to work on a bus,” she said. “The issue gets to be when you start using residential areas as a park and ride.”
Van Hoof noted that, in fairness, refinery workers aren’t the only ones parking on that street – she’s also spotted hospital staff there.
Russell said he and Coun. Sheena Hughes went to work on communicating with the company and residents to try and solve the issue. Russell had a contact at the company.
City transportation manager Dean Schick wasn’t able to say he had confirmation that the parking site along Ellesmere was being moved quite yet.
However, he noted that there have been a couple of other spots in the community where there have been concerns.
The main issue with Ellesmere Drive is that it is a local road, he said, and is narrow and on a curve. Schick said between four to 10 vehicles are parked there at a time.
A refinery bus stop was also near the Grandin Pond area, and some were using the pond’s parking lot to park all day. That parking site has been moved, he said.
People are also parking along Liberton Drive , but that’s less of an issue because it’s a collector road and therefore wider. Problems have cropped up with people parking too close to intersections or commercial accesses, however, and reminders and signs are going up to refresh memories on the rules of the road.
Otherwise, there had been a similar issue in Akinsdale a few years back but until recently no other issues with unofficial park and rides have been drawn to Schick’s attention.
Schick said the intent of the bus service is a good one, helping keep a lot of vehicles off the road.
“At the end of the day parking can be a bit of a contentious issue especially when we look at it on a neighbourhood level,” Schick said.
As for Ellesmere Drive, he said some of the workers who use that bus stop actually walk. He wants to maintain the walkability but reduce the negative impact from those who live in the neighbourhood.
Doug Bertsch, vice president of regulatory and stakeholder affairs for the North West Redwater Partnership, said in an email that the busing system has been a “tremendous success,” with 97 coaches that work throughout the region to bring 3,100 workers to the refinery site.
“Pick-up locations are assigned with consideration to mitigating traffic in residential areas, but NWR cannot control where those few workers that do drive to near the pick-up locations park their private passenger vehicles. Upon learning of concerns such as have been presented, NWR will attempt to find alternate pick-up locations to mitigate those concerns, which is what NWR is doing at this time,” Bertsch said.
They have been communicating with city staff and elected officials as to plans for route changes to deal with the current concerns, he said.
