The vast majority of Burnaby residents don’t have exclusive use of the parking spaces on their street.
That sometimes leads to people battling over parking, with some homeowners telling renters to not park in front of their homes. Many of these residents have asked the City of Burnaby to add some sort of permit parking system so only they get to park on their street.
That might solve some of the arguments, but there are a few streets in Burnaby in which residents have exclusive access to the parking.
These residents were the subject of a recent survey by the City of Burnaby to see if the system is working. The streets in question are Curle, Nithsdale and Kalyk and they are near Burnaby Hospital. The parking situation was a tough one in the neighbourhood because staff and visitors to the hospital were parking on their streets to avoid paying for parking.
In 2000, at the urging of residents, the city add resident-only parking zones. That means only residents of the specific block can park on their specific street, and not someone from the next block over.
In the past year, at least one resident has complained to council that the city and police are not enforcing the zones and outsiders are parking on their streets.
And in January, two more area residents came to the city’s traffic safety committee with concerns about application of enforcement when it comes to “corner houses” that might straddle a resident-only zone and one that wasn’t just for residents.
City staff then prepared a report that include the results of a September 2021 survey of the homes in the area to see if the residents if the signage and enforcement was working.
And here’s where things get interesting. According to the report, 17% said they wanted to keep resident-only parking, but open it up so that all residents of the three streets be allowing to park in the area, instead of just on their designated block. The report said 79% wanted to maintain the status quo.
A few of the respondents, 2%, actually said the resident-only parking rules should be removed to allow anyone to park on the streets, but limited to three hours between 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. This last one seems reasonable. Allow anyone to park and then they have to leave to make way for residents, but I guess the residents fear that this won’t be properly enforced.
My question is are the 79% greedy for not wanting even those on the other streets to park in the general residents-only zone?
This seems like a good compromise to make sure everyone has access to the parking. It might even be neighbourly.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
