Thorold City Council has approved a new by-law that will allow City Hall to temporarily ban cars from the streets in case of a significant weather event.
According to a new City Hall report, it’s become increasingly difficult to plow the streets of Thorold due to parked cars.
“The City of Thorold’s Parking and Traffic by-law prohibits vehicles from being parked in a manner that interferes with the clearing of snow from the highway,” reads the report. “One of the challenges faced in the enforcement of this provision is that the parking does not become an offence until after the plow has been interfered with.”
By invoking a temporary ban in advance of a snowfall, City Hall hopes to better enforce the by-law.
The matter was discussed at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“Something needs to be done,” Councillor Anthony Longo told fellow councillors. “I know we had some accidents with our drivers so it really needs to be looked at.”
Councillor Jim Handley proposed giving snowplow drivers the authority to hand out tickets.
“With today’s technology, all it is is a photo of the license plate and an automatically printed ticket,” Councillor Handley said. “Can we do something like that? Because it all sounds good but if you’re not enforcing it, it results in the same.”
Mayor Terry Ugulini said that he, too, would like to see more of an effort to enforce the by-law.
“The one thing I would like to see if there’s a snow event it’s all hands on deck which means all of the by-law [officers] are out there,” he said. “At that point in time, that’s the most important thing we need to do.”
And what about the sidewalks? While Thorold residents are technically responsible for plowing the sidewalk in front of their homes, the by-law is not strictly enforced, leaving some sidewalks in Thorold full of snow.
Councillor Henry D’Angela pointed to the sidewalk on Collier Road, where Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Elementary School is situated.
“A section of it is very narrow between the sidewalk and the road,” he said. “When the region plows it they dump everything on the sidewalk, making it very difficult for residents to clear. There is quite the substantive amount of children that walk that part of the road. I would rather do it than not do it.”
Councillor Longo stressed that it was important to note that plowing the sidewalk around the school would be an exception to the rule.
“If we’re going to allow this sidewalk to be plowed it’s outside the scope of our mandate,” he said. “The next thing we’ll have is people who want their non-street facing sidewalk to be plowed. I’m okay with doing it but I want to make sure we state the reason why we are doing it.”
The other councillors agreed and approved an exceptional plowing of the sidewalk around the school, as well as a temporary parking ban in case of a significant weather event.
