OLDS — In order to provide more parking spaces in Uptowne, town council has voted to implement angle parking on the north side of 50th Street from 50th Avenue to 51st Avenue.
Council made the decision during its June 12 meeting. The goal is to have it in place by mid-July. The work is part of the Uptowne Olds beautification project.
Costs of the project will be covered by a Mountain View Power grant given to Uptowne Olds.
In his introduction to the topic, chief administrative officer said that at the request of town council, a survey of Uptowne businesses was undertaken on the idea. Thirteen businesses on and around 50th Avenue were polled.
“Both members and non-Uptowne members (were polled) and it was unanimous that they would support a change to angle parking on 50th Street. So the recommendation, based on council’s request, is that we implement angle parking accordingly,” Williams said.
Mayor Judy Dahl asked if council can reverse the decision if angle parking is found to create safety concerns due to problems like people jaywalking.
“Yeah,” Williams said. “Just like you have the power to implement angle parking, you have the power to rescind it.”
He noted that the same setup exists on 51st Street between 50th Avenue and 51st Avenue, except that in that case, angle parking is on the south side of the street.
Coun. Wanda Blatz and Harvey Walsh said in their opinion, it would be better to locate angle parking on the south side of 50th Street.
“I was more thinking it would be logical on the south side of the road, strictly because (if) people would be coming from the west, you wouldn’t be cutting that corner," Blatz said.
“Whereas, if you happen to be going south and turning to the right to go west, now you’re going to come around the corner right away where you’re going to have people on angle-parking. Hopefully everybody will watch for it.”
Williams said the north side was chosen for two reasons, although he said “they're not great reasons because really it doesn’t matter that much.”
One is that staff figured having parking on the north side would be more convenient for traffic coming from the east.
The other reason is that on the south side, there is a handicap parking stall and chances are another one may be added later.
“Angle parking doesn’t seem to work as well for handicapped parking,” Williams said.
“So that was our logic. But again, is it sound logic? It could be either,” he added.
Walsh argued against angle parking on the north side because it’s inconvenient for making a right turn off 50th Avenue.
He said one or two parking spots would be lost due to an alley on that side and he believed there is a handicap parking stall on that side as well.
Coun. James Cummings argued in favour of angle parking on the north side, saying it provides the opportunity for more parking spaces than the south side does.
He pointed out that the south side has two parking lot entrances, one where the food bank goes in and for the provincial building.
“So right there, you’ve got two roadways plus the alleyway, whereas on the north side there’s just the alleyway and then it’s all curbed after that,” Cummings said.
Cummings noted that a couple of churches post signs allowing angle parking temporarily. He wondered if that could be implemented elsewhere in Uptowne in order to provide more parking.
“I don’t know if that would be more beneficial or less beneficial or just outright confusing,” he said.
When the matter came to a vote, a motion allowing angle parking on the north side of 50th Street between 50th and 51st Avenues passed nearly unanimously. Coun. Harvey Walsh cast the lone vote against it.
