Councillor says parking ban punishes urban dwellers

The head of the city’s traffic authority is defending the controversial snow parking ban.

Ken Reashor says the ban is essential for delivering a high standard of snow clearing – but a city councillor isn’t buying it.

Reashor says he understands the difficulties the parking ban presents to those who rely on street parking, but says he sees no way around it.

“We need to put on the ban in order to be able to do safe winter operations,” he said.

Reashor says suggestions for strategies like parking on alternate sides of the street each night aren’t an option.

“Some cities do that, but they dont’ have the same service standard that we have here in HRM,” said Reashor. “They have a much lower standard where roads aren’t cleared for a much longer period of time.”

The ban takes effect at 1 a.m. Dec. 14, prohibiting parking overnight on city streets between 1 and 7 a.m. Fines have doubled this year from $25 to $50.

Councillor Dawn Sloane says the unpopular policy is penalizing people living in the downtown core.

“I think they’re trying to have more people beaten into submission,” says Sloane.

The decision to raise rates falls on one man, HRM traffic manager Ken Reashor.

The province’s transportation minister Bill Estabrooks says he can understand having one man making the decision, not council.

“They have to make some decisions at times that I’m sure they dont want councillors or MLAs involved in,” says Estabrooks. “And I can see an arm’s legnth approach to these sort of things.”

Sloane says the city needs a group that looks at buses, parking and transit all in one.

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