Who among us has not greedily eyed a rare empty parking spot on the side of a road only to realize that the reason it’s empty is because a fire hydrant is nearby?
Ah, shucks, we’ve said – or perhaps stronger words.
It’s not every day we can salute city hall for coming to the rescue, but today we can celebrate council’s support on Monday night to reduce the no-stopping area on either side of Surrey’s fire hydrants from five to 2.5 metres.
And why not? The city’s fire department says doing so won’t cause a fuss. A city staff report indicates that relaxing the distance won’t have any impact on firefighters’ ability to draw water from the hydrants.
READ ALSO: More parking spaces in Surrey if fire hydrant rule change approved
Actually, the original reason for the five-metre no-stopping zone was to make it easier for firefighters to see the hydrants, but with advances in technology, namely geographical positioning systems, this no longer presents a challenge.
It’s not quite the Jetsons, but we’re getting there.
Now that relaxing the no-stopping zone has been approved by the city, all that needs to happen is for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure to revise the Motor Vehicle Act to make it so.
Ultimately, what it means is an estimated 2,650 new parking spaces in the City of Surrey.
Let’s just hope that city hall doesn’t see this as an opportunity, though, to make more pay-for-parking spots.
Having parking metres next to fire hydrants would be quite the eyesore, right?
—Now-Leader
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