City of Vancouver to remove Yaletown parallel parking stalls in compromise

City of Vancouver to remove Yaletown parallel parking spaces

Street parking in Yaletown. (Kenneth Chan / Daily Hive)

The City of Vancouver has backed down on its controversial plan to remove angled parking stalls on Hamilton Streets and Mainland Streets, and instead it will be implementing a pilot program of removing parallel parking spaces.

Depending on who you ask, between 80 and 150 stalls would have been removed if angled parking areas were replaced with parallel parking, as originally proposed by the municipal government.

But now, in a compromise, the decision has been made to keep the angled stalls and remove the parallel parking areas along both streets to create wider fire truck access, which was the recommendation of the Yaletown Business Improvement Association (YBIA).

This parking configuration will retain at least 117 stalls, according to the City. An additional 38 stalls will be created in nearby streets, as well as parkades, to help make up for the lost parallel stalls.

However, there will still be some changes to the angled parking.

The municipal government says the angled parking will be redesigned, which will necessitate many parking spaces to become shorter and drivers to “consistently park properly in the angled stalls.”

This also means longer vehicles will not fit in many of the spaces, and a six-metre clearance line will be painted to indicate how much room is needed for fire truck staging.

Planned parking changes on Hamilton Street and Mainland Street in Yaletown starting early-April 2018. (City of Vancouver)

Over the longer term, the City plans to examine the feasibility of creating more parking spaces by relocating or grouping the 60 dumpsters in the area.

“The design that will be trialed gives us an opportunity to win back some of the parking spaces that are currently taken by dumpsters,” said Annette O’Shea, Executive Director of the YBIA, in a statement.

“By working with the local businesses, we can improve the public realm in Yaletown. We feel confident that with some innovative signage and on street design, drivers will find it easier to park, and easier to find a parking spot in Yaletown.”

The pilot project will start in early-April 2018 and will be monitored and evaluated for up to one year.

Last month, in response to widespread opposition, the City also shortened its new parking parking season at Spanish Banks.

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