Fewer cars will be allowed to park on roads during winter storms in Mississauga

Having already increased fines and dramatically restricted on-street parking during winter storms, Mississauga officials have taken yet another step to make sure vehicles don’t get in the way of snowplows when the cold and stormy months arrive.

Starting late this year, the City of Mississauga will expand winter parking restrictions to include 15-hour parking areas in addition to locations already prohibited during major storms.

Officials said on Friday the move, which also includes a plan to use less road salt, aims “to keep snow clearing more efficient, effective and environmentally friendly.”

Mississauga city council recently approved the changes, which the municipality says will “help improve safety for the public and city crews,” allowing snow-clearing workers to “get to where they need to plow.”

The new measures, city officials concluded, will keep roads “in better condition and safer for everyone.”

Each winter, Mississauga gets hit by four to eight snowstorms that require the streets to be plowed (five centimetres or more snow), the city noted, adding parked cars make it harder to clear the width of the street.

“This causes delays and increases costs,” the city said in a news release on Friday.

With fewer parked cars on streets, the city said winter maintenance crews can:

• Clear roads safely and efficiently.
• Reduce repeat visits to streets with parked cars on the road.
• Maintain suitable service levels for residents.

Helen Noehammer, the city’s director of works operations and maintenance, said Mississauga’s “award-winning winter maintenance program continues to evolve to better serve residents while keeping roads and sidewalks safer and more accessible.

“Using less road salt helps protect our waterways, vegetation and infrastructure while still maintaining safe winter conditions,” she continued. “A plow-first approach, reduced salt use and fewer parked cars during snow events will help crews clear roads more efficiently and limit environmental impacts.”

New this past winter, citywide winter parking restrictions were declared by the city as snowplows set out to do their job during and after significant storms.

During such times, all five-hour on-street parking was suspended until further notice, except in areas where street signs “explicitly permit parking.”

Under the new rule to take effect next winter, the restriction now includes 15-hour parking areas when a citywide winter parking restriction is called, the city noted.

Back in January, the city said it had declared several such parking restrictions to that point in time and that compliance was mixed — despite the introduction of $150 fines for people who leave their cars parked on the street during heavy snowfalls in Mississauga.

City council approved new winter parking restrictions and fines last October as part of a revamped snow-clearing plan for Mississauga. Officials said at the time they looked to such enforcement measures in response to a growing number of parked vehicles in recent winters that blocked the path of snowplows, thereby hindering snow-clearing efforts of road maintenance crews during and after significant snowfalls.

Keeping vehicles off the streets and also clear of sidewalks during/after winter storms is even more crucial as Mississauga winter maintenance crews, for the first time ever, now clear all windrows and sidewalks (secondary sidewalks had not previously been cleared by the city).

(Cover photo: City of Mississauga)