By Anthony Ouellet
Do you think there’s a lot of free parking around campus? The City of Sherbrooke certainly does, and it is going to reduce the number of available on-street parking spaces in Lennoxville even more. Sherbrooke is planning to uniformize parking restrictions on Queen St., Speid St., Church St. and Samuel-Gratham St. While both Queen St. and Speid St. offer free, unrestricted parking spaces in Lennoxville, Church St. and Samuel-Gratham St. have restrictions ranging from 60 to 120 minutes.
Photo courtesy of Anthony Ouellet
In their effort to standardize these locations, parking would be limited to 120 minutes everywhere around downtown Lennoxville, with only a small patch being unregulated on Connolly St. The Sherbrooke City Council approved this idea during its meeting on Oct. 6, meaning that the changes will take effect soon.
Additionally, more surveillance on parking will be conducted in the borough, as it was noted that there has never been regular monitoring of parking spaces in downtown Lennoxville prior to this.
This new regulation was in part created on account of Bishop’s and Cham- plain’s students, according to the City’s own documents. “The area is also influenced by its proximity to Bishop’s University and Champlain College. Some individuals from these institutions use on-street parking spaces for long periods, which reduces the availability of spaces for business clientele”, Sherbrooke’s projects agent, Étienne St-Jean, wrote.
Speaking in front of other council members, Lennoxville councillor Ber- trand expressed his support for these regulations and stated that “people in Lennoxville were very happy” with these changes. In a poll conducted by the City in 2025, 48 percent of the Lennoxville population considered that there was a shortage of parking spaces downtown and that many of these spaces were taken up by students.
Impacts on students
This, however, will affect students who live off-campus, as many rely on these spaces to come to school. Bishop’s University does not provide students with a free bus pass; no bike lane exists between Queen St. and the University, and a semester parking pass is $165. Street parking is thus seen as a reasonable alternative for many students who attend BU.
”It sucks. I guess I’m going to have to find new places to park, as if it was not hard enough already”, a first-year student who lives off-campus and who did not wish to be named, told The Campus.
Some unrestricted street parking spots still exist around campus, as close as a ten-minute walk away, but the removal of these spaces will put more strain on students.
