According to recently published articles in the Gazette, considerable thought and expense by the bureaucrats at St. Albert's transportation department has been devoted to the question of angle parking versus parallel parking on downtown streets. Drivers’ opinions were also mixed.
However, it appears that the decision was made to abolish angle parking, primarily due to a perceived safety problem – specifically, the bureaucrats deciding that Perron Street was too narrow to facilitate angle parking on both sides.
Throughout this ‘study,’ I have not read one sentence devoted to determining the feasibility of angle parking on one side of the roadway, and parallel parking on the other.
It appears to me that if this was attempted, the painted roadway centre line could be moved over towards the parallel parking side of the roadway, which would facilitate a wider and safer traffic lane on the angle parking side. This would allow for the safer movement of traffic both backing away from a parking stall as well as travelling on that side of the roadway.
A ‘win-win’ solution for all parties, mainly due to applying common sense to a problem.
Of course, after viewing the city's latest attempts at beautification of medians by applying brightly coloured paint which will undoubtedly look like crap in a month or two, it is obvious that common sense seems to be a commodity in short supply over there these days.
Randy Kish, St. Albert
