Grande Prairie City Council has followed through with restricting residential parking around the QEII.
Neighbours of the hospital have been complaining for several months about not receiving proper snow and garbage removal due to staff and visitors parking on their streets.
Councillor Helen Rice explains that while city streets should be open to the public, they’re in somewhat of a unusual situation.
“The new hospital that’s being built is being built in an area and a residential area will grow up around it. In this particular case, that hospital was plunked down in the middle of an existing residential area.”
From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., only those with a parking pass will be allowed to park on all the roadways between 104th and 107th Avenue and 98th and 100th Street.
Much of the problem stems from 40Â or so staff members who don’t want to pay for parking.
Mayor Bill Given hopes this decision puts pressure on Alberta Health Services to come up with a better solution.
“I think the next steps are going to be the most important part of the process where we work with Alberta Health Services, the provincial government and the employees to see what other options there are so we can actually maybe start to lessen the demand for parking by encouraging people to leave their vehicles at home.”
That could mean everything from public transit incentives or shuttle buses to additional parking stalls.
The restricted parking will be put in place once signs can be ordered and installed.
