The City of Winnipeg won’t pursue a plan to ramp up snow clearing instead of reducing the number of parking spots on Burrows Avenue.
Council’s public works committee has voted to receive the idea as information, taking no action on it.
Coun. Janice Lukes, the committee’s chairwoman, said the parking restrictions were also ruled out.
RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES
City staff were prepared to remove 33 parking spaces from Burrows Avenue to ban parking within 15 metres of intersections between Main and McPhillips streets. The change was intended to reduce the risk of accidents by preventing vehicles from blocking drivers’ sight lines.
“We made it clear in the meeting … we do not want (city officials) to remove parking,” said Lukes (Waverley West).
City staff were prepared to remove 33 parking spaces from Burrows Avenue to ban parking within 15 metres of intersections between Main and McPhillips streets. The change was intended to reduce the risk of accidents by preventing vehicles from blocking drivers’ sight lines.
The Lord Selkirk-West Kildonan community committee had asked public works to reject the parking restrictions for now and test whether speeding up snow mound removal, plowing and ice control on that section of Burrows Avenue could improve road safety instead.
Under that proposal, parking changes would not be considered until after an updated report on crash data was completed, which was expected in 2025.
However, the public works committee’s final vote rules that out.
“What makes (the Burrows) situation any different than 100 other streets that have intersections that have parked vehicles on them? … People need to drive to the conditions,” said Lukes.
A city report notes officials found a pattern of collisions at numerous intersections on Burrows Avenue, with 180 crashes at unsignalized intersections between 2016 and 2020.
An illustration of the planned parking restrictions at one intersection on Burrows Avenue. (City of Winnipeg)
Community members raised a petition to fight the parking reduction, arguing stalls are already scarce and large snow mounds piled alongside roads are the true culprit for blocked views.
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Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter
Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.
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