Drivers could be fined $150 for doing this over the winter in Mississauga

Leaving your car parked on the street during heavy snowfalls this winter in Mississauga could get you a $150 fine under new city rules.

City council approved the move on Wednesday as part of an updated plan to deal with obstructions to winter snow-clearing efforts.

The City of Mississauga is looking to such enforcement measures in response to a growing number of parked vehicles in recent winters that block the path of snowplows, thereby hindering snow-clearing efforts of road maintenance crews during and after significant snowfalls.

Add to that the city’s plan in the coming months to clear windrows — the difficult-to-move piles of hard-packed snow and ice — from all homes across the city (some 134,000 driveways) and it becomes even more critical to find new ways to discourage on-street parking when the snow flies, city officials said.

Previously, there were very few, if any, restrictions in Canada’s seventh-largest city that effectively discouraged people from leaving their cars on the street and in the way of snowplows.

In looking at more than a dozen other southern Ontario municipalities, city staff earlier determined all of them “have implemented some form of winter parking restriction, which includes parking restrictions when a winter event is declared” and fines ranging from $30 to $150 for initial infractions, while Mississauga “currently has no comparable winter parking restrictions.”

Brampton, Burlington, Guelph, Hamilton, London, Markham, Milton, Oakville, Oshawa, Ottawa, Richmond Hill, Toronto and Vaughan were the municipalities Mississauga staff studied in reaching their conclusions.

“On-street parking presents a significant challenge to winter maintenance activities, particularly during plowing operations, which are typically triggered when the city receives five centimetres or more of snow accumulation,” Sam Rogers, the city’s commissioner of transportation and works, said in an earlier report. “The large equipment required for snow clearing cannot safely maneuver around parked vehicles, and in many cases the space left between vehicles parked on opposite sides of the street is too narrow for plows to pass through. This results in safety issues, operational inefficiencies, increased costs, time delays and uncleared roadways.”

Rogers added the introduction of city-wide windrow-clearing service this coming winter “further increases the need for unobstructed access to driveways. Vehicles parked adjacent to driveways or on the lower driveway boulevard directly prevent the delivery of this service. As such, the expansion of winter maintenance services significantly heightens the importance of clear roadways to ensure effective and timely delivery of winter maintenance services.”

While cars that remain parked on the street during snowstorms are subject to the new fine, vehicles parked on lower driveways, which also potentially obstruct snow-clearing efforts, are not. However, the city adds, if those vehicles are in the way of plows and other equipment, windrows and sidewalks at those locations will not be cleared by city crews.