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Councillor wants Wellington County to implement Community Safety Zones

Jeff Duncan said speeding is almost always the number one complaint he hears about from residents and thinks this could be help deter them
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Community Safety Zone sign in North Bay, Ont. Councillor Jeff Duncan wants to see these implemented in Wellington County. Jeff Turl/BayToday file photo

COUNTY OF WELLINGTON – County of Wellington is looking into adding Community Safety Zones throughout the county.

Councillor Jeff Duncan brought forward a motion to have this added to September council’s agenda with a report due back by staff in January indicating if it should be implemented.

In a phone call, Duncan explained that municipal representatives or councils can declare areas to be important from a safety perspective and declared a Community Safety Zone.

“Signage is erected, it says Community Safety Zone, and basically the deterrent or tool that it uses to help reduce aggressive driving and speeding is that fines for such activities are doubled in those zones,” Duncan said. 

Duncan, first elected to county council in 2018, had spent years on Erin’s town council and said speeding is almost always the number one concern he hears about from residents.

He explained that the county had considered it years prior but staff and council decided at the time not to go through with it. 

“It’s a new council, there’s quite a few newer members on it from that time and newer senior staff as well,” Duncan said. “It’s just for us to try to see if we can put that on the council agenda and that was successful with the notice of motion.”

He explained that when he worked in Mississauga, these zones became a political boast amongst councillors of who had more in their ward. Ultimately, the city removed many of the zones to make them more effective.

“They’re not meant to be on every road,” Duncan said. “They’re most effective when they’re used in selected areas or selected use of them so that people don't get used to them.” 

Duncan said part of the process will be deciding how many there should be and where to put them. He said he thinks they could be in downtown urban areas of the county but they could put them in troublesome rural areas. 

He specified this isn’t photo radar and that it is a separate tool to use to make roads safer.

“It’s not a magic bullet and it’s not something that will eliminate it but it's a tool that municipalities were given specifically from the province to at least form a deterrent,” Duncan said. “I just thought for a long time that we should try to have that here.” 


Keegan Kozolanka

About the Author: Keegan Kozolanka

Keegan Kozolanka is a general assignment reporter for EloraFergusToday, covering Wellington County. Keegan has been working with Village Media for more than two years and helped launch EloraFergusToday in 2021.
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