Parking Lot ‘Chaos’ a Concern for PG Parents
Prince Georg e, B.C. – Safety in and around school parking lots will be a topic of discussion when parents meet with school trustees next week.
Gillian Burnett, president of the Prince George District Parent Advisory Council, expressed her concerns at this week’s monthly public school board meeting.
At the meeting, she called on trustees to help arrange some sessions regarding possible “workable solutions” concerning “the congestion and chaos around schools in the morning and afternoon when drop-off and pick-up occur.”
“There are not many schools that escape this phenomenon twice a day,” she added. “But it is more prevalent at schools offering a choice program. These programs enrol students from the entire district and transportation is not provided.”
Burnett said changes to city by-laws and bicycle lanes is “causing even more tensions.”
She suggested the sessions could include PACs from affected schools such as Spruceland, Ecole Lac des Bois, Polaris Montessori and even comprise representatives from the city and ICBC.
Reached for comment after the meeting, Prince George School Board chair Tim Bennett said parking lot congestion is a topic “that both our senior staff and the Board have been working on over the past couple of years.”
“We expanded the parking lot at Lac des Bois and at the same time that school is designated to grow and there’s still significant congestion,” he said. “So, it is something the district needs to look at, we need to look at options, we need to look at how we can encourage families, where possible, walk to school for example. But it’s a community conversation.”
Comments
Tell me bout it… You have parents strapping in their kid in the back on drivers side of the car… Guess what !!!! door open, restricting more of the roads… When will parents get common sense and put the kid on opposite side of the driver’s view ??? Meaning, kid gets strapped in where the driver can have a visual view of the child… I swear…didn’t parents teach these people common sense???
Unfortunately this isn’t China a few years ago, lots of us parents have more than one kid.
You could immediately see that there was a problem at Ecole Lac de Bois when they implemented the new bicycle lanes and parking restrictions.
Once again we have changed things without looking at the total impact of the project.
I go through the Lakewood area on Ospika at various times of the day, and it is pretty obvious that there are very few people biking in this area and very few pedestrians for that matter, during the summer, and basically none during the winter. At the very least they should have left things alone, and allowed bikes (if necessary) to use the sidewalk.
Implementing programs because there is Government funding available is not necessarily a good idea. We are in the process of doing the same thing with the pavilion at the park.
The people parking on Ospika at Lac de Bois don’t need to do so. They do it because they are dropping their kids on that side of the school and they don’t want to have to walk from the parking lot. In the year I had my kid there I parked in the lot twice a day with no issues (other than having to deal with one particularly obnoxious man in a truck). I never had a need to park on Ospika. And I got a little extra exercise walking to the other side of the school.
Even if they had to street park, just park a little further away. Didn’t we all walk to school when we were kids? What is the harm of a one block walk? Just seems like laziness to me.
OMG I can’t believe I’m reading this. Talk about 1st world problems. Parents, instead of crying to the school board that the parking is chaos how about you park your vehicle a block or 2 away from the school and, get ready for it………WALK to pick up your kids, then WALK back to your vehicle and then put them in the vehicle with no chaos at all and no added costs to the school board.
It’s like the comments about gridlock on highways in major cities. How about you leave earlier when there is less traffic. Instead people want 12 lanes each way to fix the problem…..OMG.
Agreed.
Why park when there are drop off zones? The monitors with vests on just monitor I guess. All it would take is for one monitor one day a week to enforce the signage. Not difficult but once people see that a no stopping zone is a no stopping zone and a drop off lane is a drop off lane things will progress smoothly
Just imagine someone pulling into a drive thru and parking to go into the store. Employees would quickly get the people to move their car would they not? Or just wait until they are finished?
These things are planned for a reason.
Or, you know.. allow parking 8-10 2-4 on weekdays outside schools… its not a hard solution. I’m sure you’ll hear about it from the 5 bikeriders who it conflicts with, and I know we have to cater to the small special interest groups out there…. but it’s a pretty simple fix.
Biggest problem is people parking in the drop off lanes in the morning. There is no enforcement and once the lane is blocked by someone waiting for the bell to ring to make sure Johnny gets to the right door lineup. Just use the drop off lane to drop off and leave, if you want to watch your kid and micromanage their lives drop them off and then park elsewhere, very simple.
There is no getting around congestion at the end of the school day as you do have to park to pick them up. Sort of first come first serve on the available spots
Sorry phone erased an entire sentence – once the lane is blocked chaos ensues as people have to work their way around the parked cars and try to parallel park into the drop off lane to drop their kids off. Or just block the through lane beside the drop off lane
I find it very interesting that almost every child gets a ride to school these days.. everyone is so paranoid now that there is a molester behind every tree.. nothing has changed..actually with the internet and the exposure of these scum it is happening less but we are now scared of everything..
We are making a society of wimps… probably not to PC but to bad.
Also in the article, more prevalent in specialty schools with choice programs that have no bus service so your Hart Highway kid has to go to Ospika, a bit of a walk. My wife just plans her day to drive them in the morning and the school has a great drop off lane but we have idjit parents, think they exist everywhere. When I drop them off the odd time with my crew cab one ton it is a tad difficult to parallel park between these parents who are reading challenged. But been going on so long that people just expect it and unfortunately there is no parking along the street where they go to school. Very difficult to pick them up after school so they take the bus and we pick them up at a drop off point
Yes and no. My kids would happily take the city bus before and after school, but, wait for it — there isn’t one! There are no obvious or direct public transit routes that don’t have the kids busing AND walking a great distance, which means that to get to school on time, they leave at 7:30. Not so bad some mornings, certainly doable, but awkward to say the least.
My biggest beef about school zones / parking / drop-offs, is the parents who feel that the rules don’t apply to them. Stopping in a clearly-marked no stopping zone? Oh, but it’s just for a few minutes, it won’t count, or even better, it’s a dumb law so I won’t follow it. Or, even more fun, are the parents who strap their kids in on the driver’s side AND let them out into traffic in said no-stopping zones.
I agree about parking a few blocks away and walking. Not an extreme hardship most of the time, which saves the direct school parking and stopping zones for those who truly need it.
I agree noisy! I would also add the driver’s that park on the sidewalk , somehow think it’s OK for the kid’s that do walk , can walk on the road (They can park the way they want……)
Everyone has a chance to contact the city busing system. Were there not meetings not to long ago for public input on the busing system in this city?
Not many do car pooling anymore. Got to agree with some of the posters in regards to being a society of wimps.
I would hate to hear what the bus drivers of the city and school buses have to say about these parents and some of these kids. I have watched school buses purposely block in vehicles because yahoo’s can’t read signs that say no parking or drop off.
A novel idea is put your kids into private school, they do get picked up all over town.
On another note, busing is a privilege not a right in this country. I know quite a few kids that have complained to parents the buses are cold, they are to hot, I don’t like taking the bus and the list continues. Soooo – what do some parents do? Drive them. I have even seen parents drop off their kids in the morning when they only live a few blocks away!.
I sure filled out the transit survey that circulating a couple of months ago. Service from the Hart and even from College Heights is limited to say the least. Transfers are awkward, where they exist at all. Sadly, the transit survey was mostly designed to elicit responses about how to increase or decrease frequency, not for route changes and suggestions.
creating the next generation of snowflakes.
Lets see if we can figure this out.
1. No problem with parking when dropping off or picking up students, especially at Lakewood, for many many years.
2. City implements bike lane program, mainly because there was $250,000.00 available from the Provincial Government.
3. Bike lanes put into effect in most areas even though there are no, or very few bikers.
4. Parking problem, and chaos begins.
5. Problem created by the City with little or no thought put into the consequences, and certainly no definitive statistics on the number of bikers that use these areas between 8 and 9 and 3 and 4.
6,. Solution: Allow parents to use the now empty and useless space in front of schools that it not being used by bikers, pedestrians, or vehicles.
Right on the mark.
It is not as if there are bike lanes all over the city. There are more roads where bikes and motorized vehicles have to share the road. They even have signage for that in some location.
All these locations are in a school zone.
New rule: In school zone, during one hoour in the morning and one in the afternoon, the bike lanes can be used for parking and takes priority with bikes having to …. wait for this now ….. SHARE the motorized part of the road way.
I bet you that a grade 2 or 3 student could figure that out, if they would only ask them.
Good Lord! This is such a joke. Do I hear “Not Convenient”, and “Entitlement”, in this story? Such a minor thing in today’s world. What would citizens in another country say to the complainers? This is a non-issue.
It is an issue only because the people who made the decision and responsible for the consequences (too many forget about that part of decision making) forgot how to apply grade 2 and 3 childrens’ simple logic.
“the congestion and chaos around schools in the morning and afternoon when drop-off and pick-up occur.”
And yet when a child is eventually run over due in part to that congestion and chaos, everyone on here would be screaming about how they should have done something to prevent such a tragic incident from happening.
Interestingly those people who pick up their starbucks and Timy’s coffee ever weekday morning seem to be happy to stay in line to order, pay for and pick up their order.
How about designing on school property drop offs to allow that to happen.
They create their own problems and demand someone else solve them.
I have see this fiasco at a couple of schools.
The drivers brains seems to shut off, ( even more than normal) as soon as they enter the school zone.
There doesn’t seem to be any consideration for anyones else, by anyone.
Unfortunately that seems to be the way people’s attitudes are going now days, “it is all about ME”. you are in MY way, you are slowing ME down, you can’t tell ME what to do (laws of the land)
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