I Drove on Sparks Street

OK, so it's probably not terribly exciting to anyone else, but I thought it was cool. And I did it legally, too. Even parked legally [I think; other vehicles were pulled over in the same fashion] for 10 minutes.

General perception seems to be that Sparks Street is a pedestrian only street, but if you read the posted signs, then you notice that between 7:00 and 10:00, and between 18:00 and 19:00 (iirc), you can actually drive on Sparks Street.

Well, this morning, I had to be at 71 Bank Street to return some hardware I had previously been renting. 71 Bank Street is located, as it turns out, on the east side of Bank Street, about halfway between Sparks and Queen Streets. If you're familiar with that area of Bank Street, you know it's not an area where there's room to simply pull over and run up. So, noticing there were vehicles already parked on Sparks Street, and reading the posted signage, I drove around the block, then turned onto the street. The speed limit is a mere 10km/h, but I rolled along until I found a place to pull over near Bank, then did so, and ran my errand.

It was a little tricky to pull back out onto Bank Street, as there are no traffic lights actually facing Sparks. You have to watch the lights for the Bank Street traffic, then pull out when it is safe to do so.