91Ô­´´ Township will allow on-street truck parking on the roads of Gloucester Industrial Estates as part of a one-year pilot project.

Council voted unanimously to start the project on Monday, Dec. 16.

According to a staff report, the project will proceed in three phrases.

Phase one will allow on-street parking on Gloucester Way from 268 Street to 275 Street, and on 272 Street from 48 to 56 Avenue.

Phase two would extend that to parts of 275 Street and 58 Crescent.

Phase three would "further extend the parking to select roads in Northwest 91Ô­´´."

Drivers will be allowed to park on-street for a maximum of 72 hours. Parking will be monitored, both for compliance to the three-day limit, and to see how much parking is being used during this trial period.

The pilot project follows a year in which truck parking has been a contentious issue in the Township. The municipality has cracked down on some illicit truck parking sites on farmland in rural areas, where dozens of trucks were parking.

At the same time, truck drivers and trucking organizations have been pleading with the Township, and other cities, to free up legitimate spaces for trucks to park. With rapid population growth, the number of trucks has rapidly outstripped the available parking areas for them, leaving truckers to either park their rigs hours away from their homes, or to make illicit parking arrangements.

Industrial land, which used to host truck parking, is an increasingly valuable commodity, and leaving it as a gravel or paved parking lot is now uncommon.

The Township has already created a few temporary truck parking locations in rural Aldergrove.