Two councillors’ hopes to bring new community safety zones to west Orillia and to make the city’s traffic calming policy more lenient fell flat at the council table Monday.
Earlier this year, Ward 3 councillors Jay Fallis and Jeff Czetwerzuk brought forward two inquiry motions asking staff to report back on the ideas, which aimed to bring community safety zones to Stone Ridge Boulevard and sections of Bass Lake Side Road, while making the process for implementing traffic calming measures in Orillia easier.
City staff recommended against both requests in reports presented to council Monday; the two councillors failed to gain their peers’ support on the initiatives, as well.
Community safety zones generally feature a speed limit of 40 km/h, in effect seven days per week, and carry increased fines for speeding compared to other areas, and Fallis previously noted he has heard numerous constituent complaints about speeding on the two roads.
Staff, however, reported data shows both roads fail to meet the criteria for the enhanced safety measure.
One criterion, according to Ontario Traffic Manual guidelines, is for a road to have three collisions per year over a period of three years, and both Stone Ridge Boulevard and Bass Lake Sideroad have seen only two collisions each over that span.
Among other criteria the two roads do not meet is that they should have an 85th percentile speed over 10 km/h higher than the posted speed limit.
Both roads currently have a 50 km/h speed limit, with the 85th percentile speed at 53 and 57 km/h for Bass Lake Sideroad and Stone Ridge Boulevard, respectively.
On Monday, Fallis said further discussions with staff made him realize community safety zones are “not the way to go” in these areas, but he said he plans to bring other measures forward with Czetwerzuk to help with concerns.
“Coun. Czetwerzuck and I are looking to bring forward a motion next meeting, which might look further at bringing to budget (discussions) digital feedback signs for these areas, and that could potentially ensure that we're still conforming to policy,” he said.
However, Fallis did not feel the same way about staff’s recommendation against making the traffic calming policy more lenient.
“In all my experience, there is a great groundswell of support … especially in West Ridge, to in some ways meaningfully address traffic calming, so I hope council will support us on that,” he said.
Once again, staff and council disagreed.
City staff benchmarked the city’s points-based system against 12 other municipalities, including Barrie, London, Bracebridge and Vaughan, with seven of them using similar points-based metrics to determine whether traffic-calming measures are warranted.
Traffic calming includes physical measures meant to reduce the negative impacts of traffic, and the city’s policy considers the 85th percentile speed, traffic volume, short-cutting traffic, collisions, sidewalk presence, and more in its traffic-calming review process.
All benchmarked municipalities with fewer than 100,000 residents used a similar points-based system, with city staff recommending against making the system more lenient or reducing the number points needed to meet the threshold for traffic calming.
Aside from the city’s traffic calming policy, residents also have the ability to implement traffic-calming measures through Ontario Regulation 586/06, Local Improvement Charges.
