City campaign asks drivers to ‘Pause Before You Park’

The City of Cambridge is launching a two-week parking education campaign focused on five key areas of parking behaviors and related violations. The campaign, called ‘Pause Before Your Park,’ will feature helpful parking tips, easy-to-understand visuals, video storytelling, and increased enforcement of parking by-laws. The goal is to educate and empower drivers to pause, consider the rules, and make informed choices to avoid parking violations.

The following parking themes will be featured throughout the campaign from April 28-May 9:

Fire Routes, Accessible Parking, Lower Boulevard Parking, School Zones, Residential Parking Programs and Enforcement. Information will be shared via social media, digital advertisements, post cards, billboards, and the website.

“We know that behavior around parking needs to change and that the impact of parking improperly, or in areas designated for a specific use, can not only be hurtful but dangerous,” said Mayor Jan Liggett. “The intent behind this campaign is to help build a greater understanding around how being considerate of others needs can make us better neighbours and strengthen the entire community.”

In 2024, the City of Cambridge By-Law Division issued a total of 19,302 parking tickets for various violations. These included 506 tickets for vehicles parked in designated fire routes or near fire hydrants, and 401 tickets for accessible parking violations. These figures reflect the City’s ongoing efforts to ensure public safety and accessibility through consistent enforcement of parking regulations.

The City of Cambridge has been actively ramping up enforcement, engagement and education.

In summer of 2024, the City launched a new parking enforcement system that sends parking tickets via mail directly to the owners of illegally parked vehicles, and concentrated the launch of this technology on school zones and with enforcement around those parking in fire routes, no parking and no stopping areas, and an associated social media campaign.

In late summer, additional social media messaging reminded drivers to keep accessible spaces available, display a valid permit, and outlined fines for violations. Spring repainting of accessible spaces is currently underway in the Galt core and markings will be in line with Facility Accessibility Design Standards (FADS) to ensure they remain clearly marked, offer adequate space and are visible. The City is reviewing all municipal parking lots in the core areas for compliance with FADS and will be updating spaces accordingly.

In December, the City adopted FADS, offering detailed guidance for improving accessibility standards for the design, construction, retrofit, alteration or addition to facilities owned, leased or operated by the City of Cambridge.

To further its commitment, the City hosts an annual National AccessAbility Week (NAAW) event. This year’s event takes place on Saturday, May 24 at City Hall, promoting accessibility and inclusive community spaces.

The City’s by-law efforts were recently featured in the Human City video series. Despite limited staffing, the by-law team has been actively implementing efficiencies to increase and strengthen overall enforcement.  Starting this month, two new student staff members will join the team, with a primary focus on addressing accessible parking violations in the City’s core areas, whose main focus will be on parking enforcement as these spots are for people requiring these spaces and everyone needs to give them consideration.

To learn more about parking and the parking programs the City offers, visit cambridge.ca/parking.