The City of Sarnia realizes some public education is needed with the introduction of back-in angled parking in part of the downtown.
The streetscape changed noticeably Monday on the west side of Front Street between George Street and Cromwell Street, and it didn't take long to find vehicles improperly pulling in nose-first.
"I'm sure that'll happen a few times at the beginning," said City Director of Engineering David Jackson. "It'll certainly be much more awkward to then pull out, the angle you're in there will be very hard to get back into traffic. So we do have quite a bit of signage on the street and we've also done some social media advertising to try to educate the public on that."
Angled parking sign in downtown Sarnia Nov. 4, 2019 (BlackburnNews.com photo by Josh Boyce)
The parking change has increased the number of spaces from 15 to 29, and is part of a city strategy to find more parking in the rejuvenated core area.
Jackson said back-in angled parking is growing in popularity around North America, in part because it's safer for drivers and passengers when exiting vehicles.
"As you back in you can easily access your trunk after you're done your shopping, and then it's much safer to pull back into traffic, when you're forward-facing you can easily see the other traffic coming," he said. "We're looking at reporting back after a year to just see how it's going but generally we anticipate it will go smoothly."
