As always Canada Day in Sudbury is celebrated with a massive fireworks display at Bell Park. It is spectacular (you can even see it from my house in the West End) and it is preceded by a full day of great family-oriented events at Science North and all along the Bell Park boardwalk.

And every year it takes at least an hour to get out of your parking space at the end of the night.

So this year, like previous years, the city is offering shuttle buses from the downtown transit terminal, and the Southridge Mall in the south end. Drivers can park downtown, or at the Southridge Mall and catch the shuttle buses instead of driving the whole way to Bell Park.

Shuttle bus from TSC Hardware of Southridge Mall to @ScienceNorth every 30 mins., 11:45am-9:45pm for $1/person round trip #CanadaDaySudbury — Sudbury Police (@SudburyPolice) June 27, 2016

Shuttle bus from Downtown Bus Depot to @ScienceNorth every 30 mins., 11:45am-9:45pm for $1/person, round trip #CanadaDaySudbury — Sudbury Police (@SudburyPolice) June 27, 2016

Shuttle buses will not run from 9:45pm-10:45pm during the fireworks #CanadaDaySudbury — Sudbury Police (@SudburyPolice) June 27, 2016

Return shuttle bus from @ScienceNorth to Southridge Mall and Bus Depot every 30mins., from 10:45pm-midnight #CanadaDaySudbury — Sudbury Police (@SudburyPolice) June 27, 2016

Update:

A change has been made to the return shuttle bus schedule. They will run from 10:45pm to 11:15pm, not midnight #CanadaDaySudbury — Sudbury Police (@SudburyPolice) June 29, 2016

(For some reason the City of Greater Sudbury twitter and facebook accounts have not been promoting this, and instead have left it up to the Police)

The full news release from police is available here: http://gsps.ca/EN/News/index.aspx?newsId=a3df812d-7232-4bff-886d-1f37f6269157

And even if you don’t want to wait for the shuttle buses, downtown is only about 1.5km from Bell Park and there are close to 4,000 parking spaces available. It should only take 20 minutes or less to get to the park.

To get to Southridge Mall from Bell Park is about 3km, which is a little more difficult, especially if you have tired like humans with you.

Driving this year is going to be even more of a pain in the butt as police promise to crack down on illegal parking on sidewalks, boulevards, grassy areas, etc. They’re even warning people against parking on the former St Joseph’s Hospital property, which would be trespassing.

Vehicle and pedestrian traffic on the old St. Joseph Hospital site are prohibited. This is private property. #CanadaDaySudbury — Sudbury Police (@SudburyPolice) June 28, 2016

Of course one sure-fire way to reduce the demand for parking at Bell Park is to increase the fee for parking. As it stands, parking at the two York Street lots will cost you nothing at all.

By contrast, the shuttle buses will cost each person in your group $1 (round trip), which sounds like a discount, unless you were planning on taking the bus to the shuttle pick-up location, in which case it will cost you your regular fare, plus $1.

Normally I would recommend you bike to the festivities, but there’s very limited bike parking available.

As always, the best option is to walk if you can. The walk back from the park usually has a festive parade-like quality to it with most people in a great mood.

Have fun everyone!

For more details about parking and shuttle buses, go on twitter and search #CanadaDaySudbury, because apparently that’s the only way to get this information for some reason.

Here’s a link to all the public parking in downtown Sudbury (only 1.5 km from Bell Park): http://www.downtownsudbury.com/downtown-parking-map