If normally you park on a residential street in Edmonton, it’s time to find a new place for your vehicle as the city enacts the first Phase 2 parking ban since the new system was introduced.
Starting Tuesday at 12:01 a.m., vehicles must be off residential and industrial roads.
Phase 1 was declared on Nov. 16 after the first significant snowfall of the season, and lasted four days.
During that parking ban, crews focused on clearing arterial and collector roads, bus routes (roads marked with seasonal no parking signage) and business improvement areas.
Parks and Roads Services Infrastructure field operations general supervisor Andrew Grant said the Phase 2 ban is intended to improve mobility through residential areas after fluctuating temperatures and freezing rain last week.
“It’s created some icy conditions so we want to send our crews in there to prepare and groom that top layer of ice and we’ll be adding a sand and salt mix,” Grant said.
“Due to the icy conditions, we’ll also be adding a fractured rock chip to the mix designs, just to have something adhere into that surface.”
Grant said the Phase 2 parking ban could remain in effect anywhere from seven to nine days. In each phase, residents will be allowed to park on a street again once it has been cleared.
Signs will be placed at the entrance to neighbourhoods when crews are within 72 hours of working in the area, Grant said, adding the city also has an online route clearing map on its website.
Drivers may park in their driveway, in a parking space on a neighbours’ property with their permission, or on any road (where parking is allowed normally) that was cleared two weeks ago during the Phase 1 ban.
For people who have no other place to move their vehicles, Grant said the online map lists alternative parking spots on City of Edmonton properties such as recreation centres, parks and libraries.
“On those city properties there is signage placed so people know where exactly they can park.”
This is the first season the city has put into practice a new two-phase parking ban — which was announced last year but never declared due to a lack of snow.
“Because this is the first time that the City of Edmonton has been implementing the Phase 2 parking ban in our residential areas, we’ll be working with our enforcement officers and just issuing educational warnings at this time, just to get citizens familiar with the process,” Grant said.
This year during snow clearing, Edmonton streets will be tackled on a priority basis. Priority 1 roads include arterial roads and business improvement areas. These are cleared within 36 hours of the end of snowfall, according to the city.
Priority 2 includes collector roads and bus routes, and are cleared within 48 hours.
Priority 3 includes industrial roads, which are cleared to bare pavement standard within five days, and rural roads, which are maintained to a level snowpack within five days following the end of snowfall.
Priority 4 is residential roads and alleys, which are cleared once a five-centimetre snowpack has formed. These roads are not cleared to bare pavement.
Vehicle owners are encouraged to have a plan for where they are going to park when a ban comes into effect.
People can sign up on the City of Edmonton’s website to receive an email alert when a parking ban is declared.
— With files from Caley Ramsay, Global News