Town officials are working to place at least one disabled parking stall in the downtown area.
To start, a single stall is going to be placed on the north side of the back alley entering and exiting Centre Street North.
ìOriginally, in the report to council, we were going to put one on either side of the alley and they've asked us to investigate just putting one on the north side of the alley,î said Ron Baker, the town's director of operations.
Town officials are going to see how well the first stall operates and then consider installing another either on the other side of the alley, further down the street or across the street, said Baker.
The fine for parking in a handicap stall without a proper tag is $500.
Tom King, employee of CIR Realty, approached council in January to discuss the lack of disabled stalls in that area.
ìOn that stretch there, we don't have any disabled parking stalls,î said Baker.
Town officials, along with Kevin Heerema, the town's bylaw officer, have been investigating the issue and will talk to business owners affected before going ahead with the installation.
King uses a motorized scooter that he unloads from his vehicle and struggles with the lack of parking space when doing so.
As a response to King's concern, Baker said the goal is to have the parking stall in place by summer.
ìWe've got other concrete work to do around town, so we try and coordinate it so that it all happens together,î said Baker.
He explained that curb and sidewalk work is needed in other parts of town and the price for concrete will be at the best rate if it's purchased for all of the projects at once.
Costs for this project are available in the allotted funds for sidewalk work in the 2013 budget, said Baker.
Another option to alleviate the lack of disabled parking space in the area, discussed by council during the Jan. 21 meeting, which King attended, was to create a disabled parking area beside Sears.
The reason this was opted out is because most of that area is private land.
If the decision is made to install another parking stall on the other side of the alley, the recessed driveway for the alley will need to be widened on both sides, said Baker, in a report to council on Feb. 19.
The reason for this is so the pedestrians who use the stall won't have to share the approach to the sidewalk with traffic accessing the alleyway, reads the report.
