City council will consider installing digital traffic feedback signs along several city streets as part of the 2025 budget deliberations.
After a failed bid for community safety zones along Stone Ridge Boulevard and Bass Lake Sideroad at a previous meeting, councillors Jeff Czetwerzuk and Jay Fallis sought traffic feedback signs along the roads at this week’s council meeting.
They want three permanent feedback signs, with one along either side of Stone Ridge Boulevard and one along a downhill section of Bass Lake Sideroad, to discourage speeding in the neighbourhoods.
“We had looked at community safety zones on these two roads. That wasn’t determined to be feasible, so we thought this might be another possible solution that we could send to budget,” Fallis said. “In some of the comments I’ve heard from residents on both these streets, (they) say it’s an issue that they run into on a fairly regular basis.”
After the idea was brought up, councillors Ralph Cipolla and Luke Leatherdale supported an additional sign at Nottawasaga and Mary streets.
“We have the same problem on Nottawasaga and Mary Street,” Cipolla said. “People use that road off Westmount Drive instead of going up the hill.”
After Cipolla and Leatherdale proposed the amendment, Coun. David Campbell said he would not support the motion, as it called for permanent digital feedback signs, and he won council’s support for temporary signs along the streets.
“What we should be doing as a council, in my opinion, is not installing permanent ones, which, in fact, you will have some folks that will take great pleasure in driving by to see how high the number can get,” Campbell said. “Instead, we should have more portable units that we can move around that people won’t be prepared for.”
Council supported the proposed amendments to Fallis’s and Czetwerzuk’s inquiry, and a report on the signs will be forwarded to the 2025 budget deliberations.
