Park on the street, your car will be towed: Town of Richmond Hill
Town to strictly enforce winter parking bylaws due to increased incidents of non-compliance impeding snow removal

YorkRegion.com
Jan. 18, 2018
Teresa Latchford

Residents who ignore winter parking restrictions are going to be shown some tough love.

The Town of Richmond Hill’s parking bylaw states there is no on-street parking between the hours of 1 and 7 a.m. from Dec. 1 to March 31. While the past two winters have been rather mild, according to the town’s public works operations director Grant Taylor, this year is proving to be a little more challenging when it comes to snow removal.

Residents aren’t helping the matter by ignoring the rules put in place to ensure the public’s and plow operator’s safety as well as allow snow clearing response times to meet or exceed provincial standards.

Plow operators are encountering more and more vehicles parked on the street and cars hanging over the sidewalk as they attempt to remove the snow.

“It is a $75 fine and your vehicle can be towed,” Taylor added. “We try to avoid doing either and try to educate the vehicle owner, but we are getting to the point that we need to begin using both to enforce the rules.”

It has been common practice for town supervisors and staff to be on the roads before the six-tonne plow trucks on the lookout for potential problems and obstructions to snow clearing. Usually vehicles parked on the street are tagged or the owners are asked to move them, but due to increasing incidents this winter, the town will just be handing out the fine or towing the vehicle.

Salters head out onto the roads while it is snowing and once five centimetres accumulates the plows head out for about 13 to 16 hours to clear the streets. More and more, the operators are coming across vehicles parked on both sides of the street, meaning the plow truck can’t even get down the street.

The town typically deals with 50 weather events per year sending 24 trucks out at a time.

“If a plow can’t get down the street neither can an emergency vehicle,” he pointed out. “The plows have to move over creating windrows across driveways and drivers can’t see pedestrians due to the parked car.”

If there is an obstacle, such as a car, on the street when the plow goes by, when it is moved the plow has to return a second time which adds time to the plow operator’s shift, slows down total snow removal time across town and is inefficient.

Taylor also wants to remind residents and private snow removal companies that pushing snow out of a driveway onto the street is also associated with a fine.

He also asks residents with a fire hydrant on their property to pile snow away from it to ensure it is accessible if emergency services should require its use.

Permits for on-street parking are available but during a snow event, permit holders must park in a municipally owned parking lot and not on the street to facilitate snow removal.

More information is available at Richmondhill.ca.