Snowbanks are still blocking parking on some streets more than a month after Toronto’s last big storm

More than a month after Toronto’s last major snowstorm, some residents are complaining their streets are still so clogged with curbside snowbanks that finding on-street parking remains a problem — not just for residents but local businesses too.

In Beaches-East York, Coun. Brad Bradford says he’s received “more than 50 emails, and countless phone calls, from residents frustrated by the lack of available parking because snow hasn’t been cleared properly or at all.

There are about 53,000 on-street permit holders in the city currently, according to staff, who pay anywhere from $276 to over $1,100 a year in order to park curbside.

“A parking permit holder shouldn’t struggle to find a space because streets haven’t been cleared. A senior shouldn’t have to risk their safety to reach a sidewalk,” Bradford wrote in response to questions from CBC Toronto.

“Transit riders shouldn’t have to be delayed for hours while our infrastructure struggles to keep up.”

Even so, Mayor Olivia Chow’s office says crews have been tackling snow removal effectively, since a Jan. 25 storm dumped more than 50 centimetres of snow on the city.

Snow removal is distinct from street plowing. All streets have now been plowed, city staff say. Removal means carting away the snow that’s been piled up curbside by plows and taking it to city yards where it’s melted.

‘There’s nowhere else to park’

The city’s 311 operators have fielded more than 43,000 snow removal calls, and 90 per cent of them have been completed, Chow’s press secretary Braman Thillainathan said Wednesday in an email to CBC Toronto.

“City crews have been working around the clock to respond to this winter’s record snowfall,” Thillainathan wrote. “To date, more than 433,000 tonnes of snow have been removed from neighborhoods across Toronto, more than 70 per cent more than at the same point last year.”

But snow removal crews haven’t yet tackled many side streets in the Beach neighbourhood where Johanna Carlo, vice-chair of the Beach BIA, lives, she says. While no figures have been gathered, Carlo says businesses in her east Toronto neighbourhood are feeling the pinch.

“We feel for these residents who have been trying to get into these spots that they are permitted for, that they’ve paid for, because it disrupts their daily lives,” she told CBC Toronto. “Eventually that trickles down to the small businesses on Queen Street.

“We see a change in behavior. We see an impact.”

Jim Wilkins, a street parking permit holder on Wineva Avenue in the Beech, says on his block, he figures “five or six” spots have been lost to persistent snowbanks.

“The snowbanks were high forever,” he says. “I think people have just gotten used to it. There’s nowhere else to park.”

Contracts prioritize plowing over snow clearing: councillor

In Riverdale, Wendy Ospina described in an email to CBC Toronto “a mountain” of snow that was piled up by a plow, and which was still on the street on Feb. 20.

In Toronto-St. Paul’s, Coun. Josh Matlow calls snow-blocked parking spaces “a major issue” among residents.

In a Feb. 19 letter to the city’s transportation staff, which is responsible for snow clearing and removal, Matlow blamed city contracts signed several years ago for the problems residents are facing today.

He said those 2021 contracts prioritized snow plowing over snow removal.

“Instead of clearing the snow, the City shoves snow into parking spaces and driveways, making it impossible for residents to move their cars and resume their everyday lives due to giant windrows,” he wrote. “We can and we must deliver a better snow response service.”

Some neighbourhoods appear to be having an easier go, however.

Rick Green, chair of the Federation of South Toronto Residents Associations, which represents 30 neighbourhood associations, told CBC Toronto he’s heard no complaints about motorists being shut out of street parking.

Geoff Kettel, vice-chair of the Federation of North Toronto Residents Associations, said he’s also not been hearing complaints from his affiliated ratepayers groups, possibly because so many of those neighbourhoods have front yard parking, driveways and garages.

In Coun. Dianne Saxe’s ward of University-Rosedale, complaints about excess snow on the streets appear to have been handled well. Saxe said in a statement to CBC Toronto that her office has received about 120 requests for snow removal, all of which were taken care of promptly.

“At every opportunity, my office has worked with Transportation staff to prioritize the clearing and removal of snow from constituents in need,” she wrote. “City staff have gone above and beyond.”