Stratford City Council adopted its Transportation Master Plan (TMP) but decided to hold off on lowering speed limits.
During the Infrastructure, Transportation, and Safety standing committee meeting, held after council unanimously adopted the plan, lowering speed limits in residential areas from 50 km/h to 40 km/h was a consideration.
After debate the idea was tabled, with the majority of council opposed to lowering the speed limit.
According to the TMP, lowering the speed limits from 50 km/h to 40 km/h should be considered as a supporting strategy and to help the city achieve Vision Zero, a philosophy that entails having zero traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries by mitigating human error through design.
More than half of over 700 survey-respondents indicated that they don’t want speed limits lowered and data presented by Nathan Bottema, project engineer with the city, most serious injuries and fatalities on the road occur at intersections.
To Coun. Mark Hunter, that indicates that the problem lies there and not with speed.
Coun. Lesley Biehn said every person she has talked about this issue said a flat no to lowering the speed limits.
If implemented, reducing the speed limits comes with a hefty price tag. It would require 220 signs, costing $235,000.
Mayor Martin Ritsma was in agreement with the majority of council, though pointed to another solution the TMP suggests: automated speed enforcement.
“I firmly believe in the importance of safety for our residents,” he said. “However, when I turn back to the master plan, it states that the city should consider the implementation of automated speed enforcement and speed cameras at key locations in the city … When I drive the speed limit in the city it's difficult. People are on your bumper.
“Automated enforcement, I believe that’s a better place to spend our dollars.”
After an inquiry from Coun. Harjinder Nijjar, Taylor Crinklaw, director of infrastructure and development services, indicated that the installation of cameras will be looked into during the 2024 budget deliberations in the new year.
Coun. Brad Beatty originally put forward a recommendation to table the staff report, however, it was not acknowledged by Chair Jo-Dee Burbach. Discussion continued and it wasn’t until Burbach suggested a motion to start a trial period that Beatty’s motion was brought forward again and seconded.
It passed with only McCabe and Burbach voting against it.
City Clerk Tatiana Dafoe later clarified that the speed reduction will not move forward to city council for final approval. According to the procedural bylaw, the matter will remain ‘on the table’ until a motion to take it off is passed.
The new TMP is an updated and integrated version of two previous plans, the 2010 Transportation Master Plan and the 2014 Active Transportation Master Plan.
The idea was to have one unified plan that had a “safety-first philosophy.”
The draft TMP, developed by consultant Arcadis, was initially presented in August and had a 30-day public review period.
In that period, 18 written comments were received, most of which were on specific projects listed in the TMP. Some encouraged more emphasis on regional transit and taxi transportation, which led to two new recommendations added to the TMP.
The new recommendations are advocating upper levels of government for stable funding for PC Connect, the county’s transit service, or another form of regional transit, and for an expanded rail service to Stratford.
The now-54 projects will shift the way transportation is conceptualized and done in the city. It requires a significant investment to the road, cycling, and pedestrian road systems – an investment that may total up to $60.7 million by 2041.
The biggest investment is in the City’s cycling network, with a projected price tag of $37.2 million. The high-end estimate of the street investment is $16.1 million and $7.4 million is estimated for the walking infrastructure.
The projects will mainly take place from 2024 to 2026. Some long-term actions go beyond 2041.
Crinklaw told council that all of those projects will be brought forward for council’s consideration individually. By adopting the TMP, council is not committing to doing all of the projects right away.
