Skip to content

Letter: This Port Moody park has become a parking gong show

Editor: Port Moody boasts many beautiful green spaces. With summer upon us and new recreating patterns emerging due to the Pandemic, additional pressure is being placed on local parks and beaches.
old orchard
Old Orchard Park located in the Pleasantside neighborhood and this area resident says the area has been overrun by visitors. Photo submitted

Editor:

Port Moody boasts many beautiful green spaces.

With summer upon us and new recreating patterns emerging due to the Pandemic, additional pressure is being placed on local parks and beaches.  One such park is Old Orchard Park located in the Pleasantside neighborhood.

Visitors are frequenting this park in unprecedented numbers. On any given sunny weekend, both designated parking lots are full to capacity (approximately 70 spaces). Overflow parking spills into the surrounding residential streets. Bentley Slip, San Remo, Sentinel, Alderside Road become overwhelmed with frustrated drivers looking to park. 

Alderside, deemed a slow city street, is in fact a de-facto extension of the popular and well-used pathway system that connects all of Port Moody’s inlet parks. This pathway welcomes runners, walkers, children on bikes, seniors with pets, strollers, wheelchairs, and locals just going about their daily business.

It also is busy.

Vehicles that park on these streets often double the number of cars parked in the two designated lots. 

A traffic barricade at the north end of Bentley Slip has forced cars to alternate with those on Alderside and this often results in driver confusion as to who has the right of way to proceed.

Add to this a blind spot at the east side of the barricade for drivers, which makes it difficult to initially see pedestrians using the road to access the park. The stairwell to the park does not easily accommodate those with beach equipment, strollers, or mobility devices. This barricade has exacerbated an already dangerous situation.

The conditions on these streets are unsafe. They have become parking lots rife with constant two-way traffic, illegal U-turns, vehicles idling on private property waiting for an available street spot, dumping of garbage on the street and/or private property, overnight parking, and more

Let’s make slow streets truly safe by reducing traffic congestion and duration on these designated streets.

Whether the city places a time limit on street parking, offers shuttles from other accessible points in the city to the beach, a solution must be found. Make it user friendly, do it soon and all can enjoy these beautiful green spaces in our community this summer and in perpetuity.  

Daphne Herberts, Port Moody