Parking woes plague neighbourhoods adjacent to Edmonton Heritage Festival

Tens of thousands of people flooded this year's Edmonton Heritage Festival, some of them looking for parking in nearby neighbourhoods — and leaving residents without a place to park their vehicles.

People who live near Edmonton's Exhibition Lands and Borden Park, the joint home to the 2023 edition of the popular annual event, are required to have a parking permit. Over the three-day festival, some of them found it difficult to navigate the streets surrounding their homes.

"Some of my neighbours can’t get in and out of their garages because (festival-goers) are parked in the back lane," Virginia Park resident Diene Olsen told CTV News Edmonton. "We can’t get onto the street to get on the main road. We talked to some of the people parked here and they really don’t care."

Bonnie Budge, who also dwells in the Virginia Park neighbourhood immediately south of Borden Park, also found herself without a place to pull up to her home.

"I did go out for groceries, then when I came back, I had to go to the back and load everything because there was no parking in front," she said.

A spokesperson for the City of Edmonton said 94 parking tickets were handed out on Saturday and 68 on Sunday.

During the last month's 10-day K-Days festival at the same exhibition grounds, the city issued an average of 37 parking tickets.

"With respect to parking in their neighbourhood, it's certainly discouraged," said Rob Rohatyn, executive director of the Edmonton Heritage Festival. "This is our first year in the new location so it’s a big learning experience for us. We want to take the information away and really improve on it while we’re on this site."

The Heritage Festival is slated to be held at the Exhibition Lands for two more years while city crews renovate William Hawrelak Park, its traditional river valley home. 

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Sean McClune and Marek Tkach