Moose Javian drivers can expect to contend with another challenge next winter following a Wednesday evening budget committee decision to roll out parking bans on priority one and pilot priority two streets.
The motion to institute winter parking bans on priority one and two streets across Moose Jaw was initially tabled by Coun. Dawn Luhning.
“I sent this to everybody because I said I would last night,” said Luhning during the committee’s dicussion. “I have no problem with amendments, defeating it, passing it — whatever we’re going to do.”
Luhning stated clearly that her goal was to get the ball rolling on snow policy overhaul.
“I’d really like to see an overhaul of the whole policy,” she said. “And honestly, I’d like to see some out-of-the-box thinking coming from administration. I’m not the right person to be telling them or engineering what they should be doing.”
“I don’t really know how we’re going to do this well ... I just would like to see us try something different, including parking bans,” added Luhning. “How can we get ahead to make this work better?”
“Personally, I’d think (parking bans) are something that we could do. I think a pilot program is excellent,” said Duane Grado, the city’s public works manager. “The priority ones can be done really quickly. The priority twos will be the bulk of this program, without a shadow of a doubt.”
Grado also weighed in on signage options for any potential parking ban.
“It would probably be a very good idea to look at placards instead of permanent signs,” he said. “It’s an investment per event but ... I would just say, if we put up 1,000 permanent signs and this doesn’t work and we take them down, the repercussions would not be good.”
Several committee members were taken by the idea.
“There’s not much debate about the workability of priority one (routes). ... That’s easier to impliment, so I don’t think we should be talking about a temporary pilot in that context,” said Coun. Don Mitchell. “The pilot comes in for the more complicated (priority two) mix of bus routes and residential roads and so on.”
“My sense in the whole thing is why not try something?” said Coun. Patrick Boyle. “There’s probably room in here for some pilot or test project ... I’m certainly in favour of trying it.”
The motion was amended to bring into force a full-fledged parking ban on priority one routes and a pilot project on priority two routes before some debate arose over the funding of it.
