Councillor urges solutions for angle parking

Despite city administrators calling for a pilot project to allow angle parking in some cul-de-sacs, the chair of the city’s transportation committee believes more options need to be available.

The report, set to come before a council committee this week, comes after a parking ticket blitz last year in which many vehicle owners who were angle parking in their cul-de-sacs — some who had done so for many years — woke up to tickets on their windshields. The crackdown had many of the affected residents up in arms about the bylaws for the city’s estimated 2,500 cul-de-sacs, calling for change.

In February, Coun. Shane Keating along with councillors Richard Pootmans and Peter Demong called on city bureaucrats to address resident concerns.

“What I wanted was, in some of these tighter cul-de-sacs, (to) find solutions that would make (angle parking) work,” said Keating.

The city report found only a handful of cul-de-sacs in Calgary have the recommended 15-metre radius, which would allow emergency and waste management vehicles enough room to turn around.

Administration found there are currently 13 angle-parking locations installed in cul-de-sacs in the city, with another 20 that could be added as part of the pilot. The total number of cul-de-sacs in the proposed pilot, which would have to win council approval, represents only about one per cent of the entire inventory.

However, Keating wants city bureaucrats to think outside of the box and come up with solutions for the majority of cul-desacs that don’t meet the 15-metre radius. “What I want to do is either refer (the report) back or tell the administration we understand these scenarios on these types of cul-de-sacs, but give us two, three, four solutions that residents might vote over,” said Keating.

He suggests having homeowners within the cul-de-sac designate a specific area where everyone would place their bins on collection day to make manoeuvring easier. “It’s up to the residents in that cul-de-sac to say we’re willing to do this to get better parking. You may lose one parking spot but you might gain six or seven by having this designated spot for all waste management pickups,” Keating said.

Keating also said he’s not terribly concerned about emergency vehicles getting through the culde-sacs.

“I’m not worried about them having the ability to get in and turn around because they do it all the time,” Keating said. “When they’re leaving, they can back straight out with their lights flashing and that type of thing.”

The southeast councillor said the city needs to come up with a plan that can address all shapes and sizes of cul-de-sacs, a common street type in suburban Calgary.

“We could have very creative and different solutions, and we should be exploring those across the board rather than saying one size fits all.”

We could have very creative and different solutions, and we should be exploring those across the board rather than saying one size fits all.