Residents upset after getting tickets for parking cars diagonally after Montreal snowstorms

Montreal residents frustrated with city’s heavy-handed approach to street parking after two snowstorms.

Like thousands of Montrealers, Genevieve Galipeau has had to improvise to park her car in the Mile End.

“Basically, because there was so much snow from the one weekend snowstorm. I had to park diagonally because everyone was doing so,” explains the designer. “So after a while, you don’t have a choice to follow.”

Much to her surprise, Galipeau and her neighbours landed $120 tickets for not parking parallel to the sidewalk. She was under the impression the city would show tolerance after last week’s storm.

“I definitely think they were way too severe,” Galipeau said.

A neighbour says he, too, finds the city’s actions heavy-handed.

Her neighbour, Alex Kondylas, who’s lived on Hutchison Street for 55 years, says he was shocked to see such a strict approach from the city.

“This is a two-way street that had become one-way because of the snow banks. People managed to shovel, to find some kind of a place to park. And then you had our great city of ours come by and give people tickets for parking diagonally,” Kondylas said sarcastically.

At a press conference Monday, Mayor Valérie Plante said the city is more than halfway done with snow clearing operations and expects it will be done by Sunday.

The city says it is being tolerant but says people have to understand: if they don’t park correctly it could get in the way of normal traffic or emergency vehicles. Firetruck and ambulance drivers have been vocal about how important it is for them to get through.

On Regent Street in NDG, viewers sent pictures of snow trucks and school buses struggling to get by.

“This is where it gets tricky, right?” Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante said, during her daily briefing on this week’s massive snow clearing effort.

“Because maybe some of them are doing exactly like they did park in this direction, but we’re not blocking the way. But in some cases, it does block the way for the firefighter, the ambulance.”

Experts say people who do get tickets could try to convince a judge they were victims of special circumstances.

“I think that there’s going to be a lot of people that are going to go to court and explain to the judge that in that case it was the kind of situation where they had no other way to do things but to just park,” says Eric Lamontagne, a lawyer with the firm Contravention Experts.