Saugeen Shores council has endorsed changes to the town’s parking by-law.
During a council meeting on Feb. 14, council approved the On-Street Parking Review Request Policy, which will have staff determine when on-street parking should be allowed or restricted based on the classifications of road, design elements, and proximity to schools and businesses.
The policy is one of the last recommendations to implement from the Transportation Master Plan (TMP), which also recommends the design parameters on when on-street parking will be permitted and prohibited.
Data from zoning, distance to parks, schools, commercial areas, and reference to the Official Plan were all taken as determining factors.
A report from the Director of Infrastructure and Development Services Amanda Froese says the TMP recommends:
-In the vicinity of Elementary Schools, prohibit stopping on the opposite side of the street and parking along the frontage
-In the vicinity of pedestrian crossovers, prohibit parking within 30 meters of any crosswalk that is not located at an intersections
-In the vicinity of intersections, prohibit the parking within 10 meters of an unsignalized intersection and 15 meters of a signalized intersection
-On the streets with high parking activity, adjust regulations to increase turnover if there is a demand issue, prohibit parking or stopping if there is a sight visibility concern, or implement permit parking if there is undesired long during parking, such as during the daytime near employment uses
-Shoulder areas/edges of pavement reserved for pedestrians and cyclists, prohibit parking in conjunction with the design of active transportation facilities. Depending on the characteristics of the roadway, the prohibition should be limited to certain times of the day and certain days of the week. The time and day limitations should be tailored to the specific location in consultation with abutting property owners
Mayor Luke Charbonneau says when it comes to parking, speed limits or any form of transportation infrastructure, they have been taking a look at a well-organized and scientific procedure at how to determine what these should be on a road.
“We have developed processes coming out of the Transportation Master Plan, which we completed last year to do that work so folks can, if they look out their window and see parking on their street and think their street ought to be a no parking zone, they can contact the municipality and the municipality will consider that request in the context of a publicly available and well laid out procedure and determine if it is in the public interest for there to be parking allowed or not.
The report says to allow on-street parking, different streets will need to have specific requirements they must meet.
For the core main streets like downtown Goderich Street and High Street, there must be a minimum of 6.5 meters for driving, plus 2.25 meters for each side of parking.
“Very often these kinds of decisions in the past have been political decisions but now they are going to be scientifically driven and that is the right way to do this because in the end, speed limits and parking zones are safety features of the road,” says Charbonneau.
