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City develops new road safety and traffic calming strategy

Community Road Safety Strategy will be presented to city council for approval on July 20
2020-06-10 slow down signs
Village Media file photo

The city has developed a new road safety plan that highlights areas where new road safety measures are needed.

While the full report has not yet been released to the public, the Community Road Safety Strategy, will be presented at the July 20 meeting of council for approval.

It includes a new traffic calming policy.

“Many Guelph neighbourhoods face traffic and speeding issues. Transportation engineering staff receive approximately 1-2 road safety related concerns daily. Many of these concerns focus on speeding in local neighbourhoods,” says the staff report on the new strategy.

A total of 24 safety measures in the strategy range from educational campaigns and enforcement strategies to engineering/infrastructure changes.

A city news release says strategies will include:

  • Running education and awareness campaigns for distracted and aggressive driving in collaboration with the Guelph Road Safety Coalition

  • Setting advanced walk signals to allow pedestrians to start crossing an intersection before vehicles get a green light

  • Creating slow streets by using signs or temporary barricades at entrances to residential neighborhoods

  • Installing radar speed display boards

  • Introducing speed limit reductions

  • Installing red light cameras, as per Council direction from January 2019

  • Launching a “Please slow down” lawn sign campaign

The five highest-rated road safety priorities identified by the community are pedestrian safety, distracted driving, aggressive driving, cycling safety and speeding.

“The CRSS was developed through public engagement and in collaboration with many internal stakeholders. Community feedback gathered through online and in-person engagement was used to determine key areas and recommended strategies,” says the staff report.

The city already had a Neighbourhood Traffic Management Policy which has now been updated and renamed the Traffic Calming Policy. It hadn’t been updated since 2006.

Included in the broader CRSS, the Traffic Calming Policy outlines procedures for “initiating, reviewing, implementing, and evaluating traffic calming plans in residential neighbourhoods to help address concerns about speeding and high vehicle volumes”

There is already $900,000 in the current capital budget to begin implementing some of the road safety initiatives and up to another $376,000 in future capital budgets.

Depending on what is implemented, there could be annual operating impacts of approximately $23,000 beginning next year.


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