Should cars blocking neighbourhood snow plowing be towed? Edmonton revisits parking ban enforcement

Edmonton motorists ignoring parking bans are prompting the city to look for solutions — including towing vehicles at the owners’ expense.

Councillors shared frustrations at city hall Wednesday over drivers not moving vehicles from residential streets during mandatory parking bans to make way for snow removal and street sweeping. In some cases, city councillors said snow plows simply can’t clear roads at all despite the drivers risking a $250 fine for breaking the rules. Council voted for staff to research options for fines to get drivers to move vehicles off the streets and come back with a strategy — potentially including towing and using more bylaw officers — by the end of June.

Article content

The problem was made even clearer to Ward Karhiio Coun. Keren Tang earlier that morning when she went on a ride-along with crews sanding the roads.

“The number of cars that did not move during a parking ban is ridiculous. It impedes our folks from doing their work, it creates safety hazards on the road, and that has been all that I have been hearing about,” she said during the meeting. “Snow removal is everyone’s responsibility, and if we are not playing a role in that it makes the job that much harder.”

Ward Nakota Isga Coun. Andrew Knack, who brought the topic forward for discussion Wednesday, said the city gave Edmontonians a two-year grace period before starting to issue tickets and there was a mailout reminding people about parking bans in the past.

“Frankly the amount of work that has gone into notifying Edmontonians about this, I think we have done our due diligence. We need people to actually follow suit because a handful of vehicles just completely eliminates the quality work that our operators are doing,” he said.

“Forgive my frustration. It’s frankly exhaustion of just a handful of people who are not helping the rest of their neighbours have the city that we need.”

Article content

Article content

Ward Anirniq Coun. Erin Rutherford said some streets in Inglewood didn’t have snow cleared at all because plows couldn’t fit in between cars parked on both sides of the one-way street.

“During the ban, certain cars didn’t move, there were certain streets that didn’t get cleared at all because there was no ability for the machinery to go down that road,” she said.

But if the city proceeds with fines and towing, Rutherford said she’s concerned having to pay two tickets could be too much for seniors or newcomers who may not be aware of the rules.

Edmontonians can sign up for notifications from the city and signage is posted in neighbourhoods before bans are triggered.

The most recent parking ban started Sunday.

Enforcement drops

Having the city tow vehicles during parking bans isn’t a new idea, but it hasn’t happened in the last two winters. The city towed and ticketed vehicles during parking bans as part of a pilot project in the 2022-2023 winter season.

Council heard the city currently doesn’t have a contract in place for towing during parking bans.

Other enforcement has declined as well.

Article content

David Jones, branch manager for bylaw enforcement, told councillors the city only has five bylaw officers dedicated to enforcing parking bans today for the entire city compared to 15 in the winter of 2022-2023.

“We do know that we need to have significantly more officers to write tickets in order to keep up,” he said during the meeting. “I think one of the most significant things we found during that pilot project is just the force and speed at which (parks and roads department) is able to clear the roads — it far outpaced what we had in that pilot project with respect to capacity.”

The drop in officers available to enforce the rules may explain why ticketing has dropped off as well — more than 4,000 tickets in winter 2022-2023 compared to just over 700 the following winter.

But even when towing was an option, the city didn’t have enough resources to tow all the vehicles that were ticketed — there were about one in 10 vehicles towed compared to tickets that season.

Knack is hoping to see an option for “zero net” costs to the city where drivers who don’t move foot the towing costs to make sure the city breaks even.

Article content

lboothby@postmedia.com

@laurby

Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters.

You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun

Article content