A Metro Vancouver park user is speaking out after being turned away from Buntzen Lake despite having a Sunday day-use reservation.
Lindsay Heller told Global News that she stayed up until midnight on Friday to secure the afternoon booking and felt like she had “won the lottery” when she secured an afternoon slot for the long weekend on Sunday.
Under a pilot project run by BC Hydro, which owns and operates the lake, attendees must book a free reservation to gain access to the lake this year, an initiative designed to reduce congestion and illegal parking on nearby streets.
Read more: Citing neighborhood impact, BC Hydro implements parking pass at Buntzen Lake
“I could have taken the whole day, but I knew we weren’t going to be there in the morning, so we took the afternoon slot and planned our whole day around it – packed up the kids and left,” she said.
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On Sunday, Heller, her husband, their two children and her father packed up all their gear, made lunch and got in the car and made the 80-minute drive to the lake. The family deliberately arrived around 4:30 p.m., expecting the morning swimmers — whose reservation ended at two — to clear out, she said.
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Instead, they arrived at the parking lot only to be turned away by staff.
“They told us they don’t honor afternoon reservations because in the morning people haven’t left yet and there’s no parking,” she said, adding that she asked staff what they were doing to solve the problem.
“They had no answer for us. I feel bad for them. They seemed pretty ill-equipped to deal with it. You know, they’re also young people standing in the sun,” she said.
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“But we’d also made a full day of it, and it’s not a 15-minute drive for us.”
Staff directed them to go to a nearby mall and come back later, but said they couldn’t guarantee there would be room for them, she said.
The family went to get ice cream and returned about an hour and a half later when they were finally allowed access – about 30 minutes before the sun set behind the ridge.
“It was better than nothing, but it ruined our day and didn’t make it as fun as it was supposed to be,” she said.
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On Monday, BC Hydro spokesperson Simi Heer apologized to reservation holders who were denied.
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Hear said park operators faced a unique situation: two back-to-back missing person reports that required a web search and that drew staff away from the beach and parking lot.
“In this situation, our park staff went around and got people whose passes were expiring to leave, but unfortunately they were called to two emergencies back to back and were unable to do so,” she said.
Read more: Next month you’ll need a reservation to park at Buntzen Lake
Hear said it was the first time in the five-week pilot that reservation holders had been turned away.
She said BC Hydro will incorporate lessons from the incident when it reviews the initiative in late summer. But she said park users also need to do their part.
“For the system to work, we need people booking hours to leave when their time is up.”
“We’re all in this together and doing our best to learn and change procedures as we go, but we also need people to do the right thing.”
For Heller, the experience put a damper on what should have been a fun family outing.
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She said the reservation policy appears to be working in terms of preventing illegal parking in the area, but there are obvious issues that need to be addressed for park users.
“It’s really disappointing because I did the right thing and I believe in justice and in the morning people just didn’t care,” she said.
“If you choose to stay there until 2 p.m. … and you just choose to stay, I think the car should be towed. It’s fair to people who have worked all afternoon to come and enjoy the area with their families.”
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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