Parking tickets, fines coming to Iqaluit this April

JOHN THOMPSON

By next month, Iqalummiut who park their cars nose-first into the city’s back-in stalls can expect to find a ticket on their dash.

First-time offenders will likely get off with a warning, while repeat offenders can look forward to a $50 fine.

On Monday evening the city’s councillors and staff held a second public hearing on their proposed traffic, parking and walkways bylaw. If the empty seats at the meeting are any indication, the bylaw will likely cruise through its third and final reading by early April.

“I think this is clear support we’re getting,” city planner Michele Bertol said at the meeting, which no residents attended.

“I do too,” replied Coun. Nancy Gillis.

Under the new bylaw, drivers could also face a $50 fine for parking their vehicle anywhere that obstructs traffic or blocks a driveway, intersection, walkway or crosswalk. That fine also applies to any vehicle parked within three meters of a fire hydrant and five meters of a stop or yield sign.

Snowmobile and ATV operators could also face a hefty $150 fine for riding on the city’s walkways and trails. As well, snowmobile and ATV riders who drive recklessly along the pedestrian walkways could also face a stiffer $250 fine, under the city’s ATV bylaw. And residents who ride bikes on the pedestrian walkways could receive a $50 fine.

Drivers who fail to stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk could be fined $75. Currently those crosswalks are only marked by differently shaped wooden posts along the road’s edge, but this summer city staff plan to paint the crosswalks on the Ring Road.

Those lines will be covered with snow by the fall, but Bertol said she hopes their few months of visibility will remind pedestrians and drivers where the crosswalks are.

Pedestrians who cross the road outside of a crosswalk, or without looking both ways for traffic, could also receive a $25 fine.

The city’s bylaw chief, Robert Kavanaugh, says his officers plan to focus on jaywalkers who pose a safety hazard.

“If they’re causing the traffic to slow down or if they’re putting someone in danger, we’ll definitely stop and chat with them,” he said.
“I’d like to see everyone use a crosswalk, but to have that, we’d need a crosswalk every five feet.”