WESTLOCK – Although angle parking was eliminated from a portion of 107th Street over the long weekend, town brass says there are no further plans to remove it from the rest of the downtown core.
Town of Westlock CAO Simone Wiley said they decided to delete the handful of angle parking stalls on 107th Street, between 99th Avenue and Main Street (100th Avenue), due to the fact that there’s currently only one business operating on the stretch, the Leigh Smile Centre.
The remainder of the lots on the south side of 107th Street are either devoid of development, unoccupied, or being used for storage, as in the case of the old Westlock Motors Body Shop. A handful of businesses from the north side of 107th Street who were canvassed for comment were either unaware of the change, or had no opinion — the north side of the street has long used parallel parking spots.
“When you look at the hazards and safety concerns associated with angle parking, any time you can remove that hazard and make it parallel parking it’s the right thing to do in terms of safety,” said Wiley. “Right now that particular section of 107th Street has limited businesses so we looked at it and we thought that this is the time to make that change when we’re not impacting existing businesses. When you drive down there and there’s a long-box pickup truck with a hitch angle parked, you’re having to go around it into the other lane. So we wanted to mitigate that.”
Leigh Smile Centre manager Corie Zeise said they were not advised of the parking change until it happened and when she contacted the town to discuss it she was forwarded to the bylaw officer. She said she doesn’t believe the change will benefit their patients.
“He said it was a safety measure, yet quite a few streets in the downtown have angled parking. I mentioned to him that this reduced our parking considerably as we have no off-street public parking. He said it would work out to the same amount of stalls down the street and of course only really effected our office on the street,” said Zeise.
“I told him I was concerned about the seniors or handicapped and he said I could always get signs out front for those groups which would still reduce the parking availability. I said businesses should have been advised and he said it was discussed by the council. The discussion ended with me suggesting if I received complaints regarding this I should advise our patients to contact him directly.”
Despite the recent change, Wiley said there are no plans to eliminate angle parking in any other locales. Once you pass Main Street (100th Avenue), angle parking resumes in front of the Shoppers Drug Mart-anchored set of businesses on 107th Street, then ends for the remainder of the stretch. The south side of 106th Street, between 99th Avenue and Main Street (100th Avenue) features angle parking as does the west side of Main Street (100th Avenue) from Arth’s Fashion Centre, which starts on 107th Street, to the front of Keri’s Café and Bakery in the old United Church building on 105th Street.
“We’re not able to do it in a lot of other places without causing huge impacts to business, so we’re just not,” Wiley confirmed. “The circumstances were right to make the change on that portion of 107 right now, but no, we have no other plans at this time.”
The angle parking versus parallel parking debate comes down to, at least partially, space versus safety concerns. While Westlock has retained some angle parking, the Town of Athabasca has eliminated it from the downtown core. The Town of Barrhead, meanwhile, continues to offer angle parking on both sides of Main Street, as well selectively in the downtown area.
“Honestly with angle parking you get more vehicles into a smaller space, but vehicles have also gotten bigger over the last 30 years. So with vehicles getting bigger and traffic safety becoming more predominant, plus a higher volume of traffic … that also plays into it,” Wiley said.
“Backing into oncoming traffic is seen as being a little more unsafe versus pulling out into traffic when you’re parallel parked. So I think there has been a trend away from angle parking.”
