Surrey - The Editor, Re: "Where the streets have no space," the Now, March 18.
I live in East Clayton and, for the past four years, I have witnessed the parking situation get worse.In every article I've read to date, illegal suites are always to blame. And while I definitely agree this is an issue, I don't believe this is the main problem.We are a three-vehicle family and we rent out our coach house. We park both cars in our garage and rent to a single person in the coach house that parks his vehicle in the designated coach house spot. As a responsible landlord, we will only rent to a single tenant with one vehicle. As soon as people start renting to tenants with more than one vehicle, the extra car gets parked on the street - or in the back lane (you don't want to get me started on that issue). This results in many extra vehicles being parked on the streets.I can't tell you how many people that I see not parking any cars in their garage. Instead it is used as storage. People need to pay for offsite storage and park their cars where they belong - in the garage.The other problem are work trucks. On my street alone, there are five company trucks that are parked out front every day. This raises another problem - our garages are not big enough. Anyone who drives a truck can't park it in their garage.I, for one, support the idea of permit parking. If each household were only given one or two spots to park on the street, people would be coming up with ways to park in their garages.I also think that the city should paint lines on the road to indicate parking spots. This would maximize the space and alleviate wasted space.Denise MarlinSurrey