Despite two new parkades at Kelowna General Hospital, visitors, staff and patients are finding it increasingly difficult to park their vehicle during the work day.
Construction isn’t supposed to be done on expansion work at KGH for another 7 years so the City and Interior Health are attempting to alleviate the problems following hundreds of complaints.
“I’m actually here from Vancouver as an educator,” says one frustrated woman. “I’m absolutely enraged. I’m parked two and a half blocks away and I drove around for 20 minutes looking for parking and obviously happy to pay for parking but there isn’t any.”
Kelowna City Council endorsed several recommendations Monday that will increase parking enforcement and look to reduce volumes on streets near the hospital.
“City staff recently became involved in a community liaison committee to work out solutions to residents concerns,” says Ron Forbes, Kelowna Property Manager.
Measures include more visible parking information signs, extended time restrictions, new meters and towing repeat offenders.
Neighbours have become so angry at violators they have taken to extreme measures.
“I’ve seen a lot of residents to do things to try and take the law into their own hands,” says resident Lindsay Gibson. “I’ve seen a guy stuff snow up the pipes the exhaust pipes of people’s cars and not have them work. I know people who painted parts of the sidewalk to make it look like a restricted zone. People have tried all kinds of things.”
Other residents say frustrated drivers are creating dangerous residential roads around the hospital.
“For us, really, it’s the traffic,” says Jason Broome, who lives directly across from the Southern Interior Cancer centre, which is beside KGH. “It’s the speed at which they come down Royal Avenue and also the pedestrian traffic crossing at Long across Royal. There should really be a traffic crossing there.”
“We have young children,” Broome continues. “There are fast cars coming down. The two don’t mix well.”
The City estimates upwards of 500 construction workers come to the KGH site every day. And although they are only permitted to park more than 1 km away from the hospital, residents say they see them parking within the first block every day.
“It’s very difficult because we’ve got a daughter that uses a wheelchair,” says one Glenwood Avenue resident. “Often we have to unload on the street rather than in our back parking and we can’t do it mainly because we have workers trucks, like that one right there. They sit there and don’t seem to get ticketed all day.”
Interior Health will begin renting 23 spots from the City in the Strathcona Park parking lot in November until March for hospital staff and visitors. Next year, when the East Pandosy hospital building opens, 50 stalls on the ground floor will become available. An IHA property near Royal Avenue will also be redeveloped in 2012 to accommodate another 50 parking spots.
Until then, the parking situation is expected to remain tight during peak visitor hours, Monday to Friday from 10 am to 2 pm.
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