Parking on Waterford Drive in the village of Erin is back on the table for council consideration.
Waterford resident Barry Pennington made a presentation on April 21 to discuss the no parking bylaw amendment preventing parking at any time around the traffic circle as well as the street’s use as a school bus route.
Council amended the parking bylaw in February to prevent parking on the traffic circle because large vehicles like fire trucks and buses weren’t able to get around the circle when cars were parked along the side of the road.
Pennington said that in 2001 the conditions on Millwood Road were not safe for the children walking to St. John Brebeuf Catholic School so school traffic was diverted to Waterford Drive while the repairs were being completed on Millwood. However, once the rehabilitation was completed, the traffic remained on Waterford, Pennington said.
“We were initially surprised that council would consider accommodating the buses on Waterford by banning our parking to do it, until we discovered that the current council was not made aware of the history of this issue,” he said.
Another factor contributing to the new no-parking zone is the new curb around the turning circle that was installed last year.
“Before the new curbs were installed cars parked around the circle all the time, but the buses simply wore dirt grooves in the grass around the inside of the circle to get through,” Pennington said. “It is the new curbs installed with the Waterford Road reconstruction last fall that has brought this issue to a head, not residents using the legal parking that has always been available.”
Pennington brought a petition signed by 46 people, including almost all the residents on Waterford, asking the Wellington Catholic District School Board to route buses and school traffic to Millwood Road and that the parking on the Waterford circle be “reinstated as it is an undue and unnecessary restriction on property owners.”
Pennington asked council to get the bus and school traffic off of Waterford Drive and to consider reinstating the street’s parking.
Councillor Jeff Duncan suggested putting four or five parking stalls in the middle of the traffic circle to offer some additional parking for the street residents.
“They’d be fully blocked from view, this is all, as anyone who lives there knows, it’s all heavily vegetated, you wouldn’t see it,” he said. “So you come in, you pull in so it wouldn’t be parallel parking along the side, so all this would involve would be removing the curb cut out of here, removing the topsoil, putting gravel down and that would provide some parking stalls.”
He said that it’s not just school buses that have an issue with the road, but all larger vehicles would struggle.
“I will acknowledge … there probably was a design flaw or oversight or whatever, but when the turning circle was redone last fall, ideally the inside of the circle should have been made smaller so that the pavement was wider, the curbs on the inside should probably have been a rollover curb, the ones that are … shallower and that would have allowed this to happen,” he said. “The cost to reinstate that whole turning circle to fix it up, to be blunt, I think it’s too much for the town to handle.”
Councillor Matt Sammut said he was concerned about children’s safety first and foremost. However, he also noted school bus drivers reported that they didn’t see any children on the road when they drove down the street. He also said he wasn’t sure why the residents needed additional parking because they all had driveways.
Pennington said that for him parking is an issue because his wife runs a day care out of their home.
“Where this started, where it came to a head was actually a parent was parked on the curb side, legally, and was bringing their kid into our house and a school bus came around and felt he couldn’t get between the car and the snow bank and the curbs on the inside of the circle,” he said. Now they park the family vehicle out on the road so clients can pull into the driveway.
Pennington said the school bus driver may not have noticed any children in the area because there really aren’t any now. Many of the families have adult children he said, and others just moved to the community and don’t have kids. However, he did say that his wife walks children at her day care to school every day due to safety concerns, he said.
Councillor Rob Smith said he thought the easiest way to resolve the problem may be to reinstate parking between certain times.
For Councillor John Brennan he thinks it should be the school board dealing with the issue. If the buses are having difficulty making the turn into the school, he said he thinks that’s the board’s jurisdiction.
Council received the report for information and requested the roads superintendent bring back a report to council. Until a further decision is made the no parking bylaw is still in effect on Waterford Drive.
