It appears there will be room for parking on Florence Street in Petrolia after all.
Florence Street is part of a major construction project underway this summer.  When town staff recently held a public meeting to explain the project which includes the installation of water lines and sewers, residents were told it will be permanently narrowed.
When construction is completed, staff said at the time, residents who have visitors won’t have anywhere for their guests to park.
Currently, people park on the road, but that won’t be possible when curbs and gutters are installed and the road is smaller.
Petrolia’s Director of Operations Mike Thompson said it would be difficult to accommodate parking on Florence but now believes on street parking is possible.
“We’ll be using low back curbs that will give us additional parking,” he recently told council adding it is the same type of curbs used in new subdivisions.
“We did lots of measuring on the local street,” he says noting when the project was first in the works he “erred on the side of caution” deciding that on street parking would not be possible.
“There will be parking on the side of Florence and Egan when the reconstruction is completed,” Thompson says. “The sidewalk abuts the curb. That will stay the same.”
Meantime, residents in the area are now using a temporary water line as the contractor digs up the street.
Construction is expected to last until the end of October.
The second phase of the project will be built in 2018.