Thornhill Avenue residents submit petition on parking problem

Addressing members of council at city hall on Feb. 26, Carol Roper of 47 Thornhill Ave. said the petition was born from longtime frustration.

It begins "in the morning when the staff of a nearby school, a firehall and the Public Security park their cars for most of the day and into the evening," she said.

"In the case of the latter two groups, sometimes even after 11 o'clock," she added. "We who have to pay for the privilege of 24-hour parking would like to be able to arrive home at any time during the day knowing that we have a place to park our cars on our own street."

Roper said the residents of Thornhill, including herself and Jean Branchaud who helped her organize the petition, "respectfully request the City of Westmount to restrict parking on our street for residents only."

She said the requested restriction would be for residents who have no garage or parking apron, or who have more than one car, as well as for occasional service vans or delivery trucks and visitors.

"It has been noticed that other streets in Westmount have been designated for residents only for a lot of reasons," Roper said. "And we feel that our part of Thornhill Avenue should be one of them."

Roper said that among the households where residents signed the petition, five have two cars and one has three, although no one has a garage that can accommodate more than a single vehicle. In addition, she pointed out that half the cars when parked in driveways extend over the sidewalk in violation of a bylaw for which the City has lately begun an enforcement campaign.

Marks acknowledged that a number of other local streets have residents-only parking. "I would say at least half of the city streets have it because citizens have come and said there are problems," she said. "That's what our traffic committee does.

"It looks at it and says 'what are the impacts if we do this and if we don't do this.' We will go to the traffic committee, they will look at it, and then if it's something that they want to do, they come and they do a survey on the street as well to make sure that everybody's in agreement with whatever changes are going to be made."