Parking in Waterloo Region

[MidTowner]

Thanks for the benefit of your expertise and experience, Coke. So, for four months of the year (December 1 to March 31), the 2:30am to 6:00am ban is enforced. And the rest of the time, the three-hour limit (including overnight parking) is only enforced on a complaint basis. Which can make it seem somewhat capiricious to a vehicle owner receiving a ticket. And possibly even the residents of the neighbourhood that is enforced on the morning of December 1.

The City of Kitchener already has a system to declare "snow events" and inform residents that parking will not be permitted for the following 24 hours. We could easily do the same year-round, by either sending out an e-mail or just saying (for instance) "when Environment Canada predicts x centimeters of snow over the next 24 hours, parking is prohibited overnight." As for street sweeping, that's solved in many places by using one side of the street for half of the month, and the other on the other, or prohibiting parking on specific streets on specific days.

There are huge costs to disallowing street parking, or making it impractical. I don't think they're really on the radar of the City of Kitchener's accounting when they set these regulations.