Business owners and residents in Yaletown gathered Thursday to protest the City of Vancouver's removal of dozens of parking spaces from the already over-crowded neighbourhood.
"You take away the traffic, they're going to kill the businesses and sell the land off," said one protester.
Earlier this month, the city announced plans to remove the spots from the neighbourhood in a bid to improve access for firefighters.
"It's been identified as a serious life safety issue and we need to be able to respond quickly," said Paul Storer, the city's manager of transportation design.
Come March, about half the spaces in a five-block area of Yaletown will vanish. That includes all of the diagonal parking spots on Hamilton and Mainland streets.
Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services says those streets are too narrow and crews don't have enough room to do their jobs efficiently.
"The outcry would be huge if we were delayed in response and we lost a structure or worse, lost a life," said Fire Captain Jonathan Gormick.
But some business owners say they could lose clients in exchange for the faster response times.
"To know that this has been planned on for a while then just dropped on us for next month that they'll be removing the parking is a bit of a shocker," said Paul Rivas, the owner of The Parlour on Hamilton Street.
On Feb. 6, Gormick said firefighters had considered all the options for improving access and said these changes will be final.
But some of the protesters disagree.
"There's a lot of options available that the city…isn't interested in listening to and they just kind of threw it on everyone," said Robbie Trudeau, who works in the area.
Mayor Gregor Robertson has also expressed some doubt as to whether the move is the best way forward in the long term.
"It's still to be decided how the change happens," he said earlier this month, adding that further community consultation is needed.
With files from CTV Vancouver’s St John Alexander
