City committee hears 10% of residents complying with residential parking ban during snow-clearing work

The city says only 10 per cent of residents obeyed the Phase 2 residential parking ban. CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson has the details.

Just 10 per cent of Edmonton residents are obeying a residential parking ban as crews work to clear neighbourhood streets following historic snowfalls.

That’s what city council’s community and public services committee heard from administration on Monday as civic politicians mulled whether to decrease fines to $150 from $250 for ignoring a recent civic residential road parking ban.

They decided to maintain the current fine amount.

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Two councillors who sit on the committee say the city should consider the number of parking enforcement officers the city employs -- currently, there are five, down from 15 a year ago -- but also other tools in an effort to get more people to follow the rules.

Ward papastew Coun. Michael Janz told media on Monday he’d like to see the city administer a registration system for vehicle owners who want to park on the street as well as introduce automated parking enforcement, something Calgary has been using for the last seven years.

“We do need surge capacity, but we also need to make operational improvements. If we get this right in terms of dealing with the parking bans -- if we increase enforcement, if we’re able to remove some of these duplicative actions that waste everyone’s money -- we’ll be able to be much more efficient,” said Janz, adding he acknowledges the historic levels of snow that fell last month were a “once-in-30-year” event.

Ward Sspomitapi Coun. Jo-Anne Wright said the city needs to stay consistent with enforcement so it has “good comparators year over year.”

“People figure, ‘Why should I have to move my vehicle? The likelihood that I’m going to get ticketed or towed is quite low,” she told reporters.

“(And) if we keep switching things up, if our administration doesn’t know how many officers to plan for each year, it makes their work a little bit difficult, too.”

Compliance isn’t the only obstacle city crews are facing in neighbourhoods. City administration and the union representing outdoor employees said crews have been threatened while they’ve been working on residential roads.

“We had some areas where we actually had to de-mobilize due to worker safety, due to threats from the public,” Caitlin Zerebeski, the city’s branch manager for parks and roads services, told the committee.

CUPE Local 30 president Eric Lewis told reporters of death threats, verbal assaults, people throwing shovels at equipment and a worker who was threatened with a baseball bat.

He said he’d like residents to remember workers are simply doing their jobs and live in the city, too.

“They want to make the roads safe for their families and for the residents of Edmonton,” Lewis said, adding he thinks better communication by the city would also boost compliance. “They are just trying to do it as safe as possible. And yes, if they are not getting assaulted, they can do it a lot better.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson