End street parking in front of Snooty Fox

Idea:

The busiest section of Regent street inconsistently loses 1 lane of traffic for one block. Parked/stopped cars cause bottlenecks, forced last-minute merging, and confusion. With skip the dishes, taxis, more cars are using the evening allowance of street parking to quickly pop in to restaurants (even sometimes outside the allowed street parking hours). Each time it completely halts traffic in the northbound right lane, causing back-ups, quick merges in a busy downtown block. As Regent street is a highway, I don't understand why that one block of all areas is allowed to have street parking. Flowing access to the bridge, and Queen street (east and west bound) should take precedence.

Staff Feedback:

Thanks for your thoughtful question! Downtown Fredericton Inc. approached the City in 2015 about starting a pilot project to permit off-peak parking on Regent Street in order to better support local businesses. A second goal of this project was to reduce traffic speeds in this high pedestrian area during those times of day when there is less traffic and drivers are tempted to speed up. Allowing parking on curb lanes during the evening when there is less traffic is common in larger cities because it tends to slow traffic down and provides for a more efficient use of roadway infrastructure.

Council approved the pilot project with the expectation that staff would monitor collision activity, travel speeds, potential impact of parking violations on traffic flow during peak periods. A review of the traffic data collected has shown that travel speeds have reduced when parked cars are present, and that there had been very low collision activity on this block following the implementation of the pilot project. This is why City Council's Transportation Standing Committee opted to make the pilot project permanent in 2018.

In terms of continuous travel northbound, we encourage drivers to use one of the two continuous through lanes on Regent Street towards St. Anne's Point Drive. It is recommended to use the left most through lane in the evenings so that you avoid any parked cars on Regent Street.

Hope this explains where we’re coming from on this – and thanks again for your comments.