Edmonton homeowners say LRT is forcing them to pay for parking upgrades

For the last 10 years, Colin Davies has called the Strathearn community home. Parking out front on the service road has never been a problem.

“But as of July 1, they say that that’ll be gone,” Davies said, while giving Global News a tour of his property.

READ MORE: New motion suggests keeping LRT at street level at busy west Edmonton intersection 

The elimination of the service road — and the parking that comes with it — will accommodate the future street-level Valley Line LRT.

“You’ve got to start planning what you want to do if you have guests over.”

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Davies and his neighbours will be forced to use the back alley to access to their homes by vehicle. In the post-war-built neighbourhood, some properties don’t have full garages or parking pads.

Davies has a small, single-vehicle garage and will be spending “$10,000, maybe more” to add a pad.

“Plus, I have to move all the trees and everything else. There’s going to be a lot of labour involved in getting this going.”

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Davies has been in touch with the city about his concerns.

READ MORE: Edmonton Valley Line LRT construction will cause traffic headache in 2018 

“People have always assumed that they had a right to the parking in front of their house,” area councillor Ben Henderson said.

“There’s a lot of people that never had parking in front of their house. It’s hard when you’re used to something, I understand that.”

The alley is planned for upgrades but it will happen after the front-street closure, meaning residents won’t have vehicle access to their homes for a short period of time.

“We have to find our own parking, possibly park blocks away,” Davies said.

He believes all the work should have been better coordinated.

“I just kind of want answers and that’s the difficult part — just getting answers.”

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Council recently approved a new alley renewal program.

Henderson says staff are working out the details of which areas are tackled first.

READ MORE: Is Edmonton’s Valley Line LRT designed with growth in mind? 

“One of the things I suggested, because it’s come up, is one of the criteria we look at for higher priority is these kinds of situations.”

Davies understands change will happen and is excited about LRT development. He’s speaking out, though, as a warning.

“If anything comes out of this, I hope for future communities — as this keeps going along — they can look ahead before they put people at a disadvantage like this.”