WELLINGTON COUNTY – The County of Wellington’s roads committee wants to work with the OPP to curb aggressive driving which many councillors said is the most common complaint from residents.
Tuesday’s roads committee had a delegation from two residents who live on a stretch of Wellington Rd. 86 between Ariss Valley Road and Ariss Valley Golf and Country Club.
The posted speed limit on this stretch is 80 km/hr.
These residents were asking the committee for some traffic calming measures such as a lower speed limit, signs asking drivers to slow down and/or a flashing sign indicating a red light ahead to reduce noise from engine brakes.
Andrew Gardner, who moved to the road a year ago, noted that truck and other traffic activity has increased causing difficulty for residents to pull out or into their driveways.
“It’s only a matter of time before there’s an accident that’s more serious,” Gardner said.
His neighbour Tammy Stevens expressed the same concerns and has noted that traffic has changed over time.
“I’ve been there for 24 years and we’ve really noticed the traffic increase over that many years,” Stevens said. “It’s only the last few years I’ve kind of thought about moving because of the traffic.”
The committee was very sympathetic to their concerns but were unsure if signs and reducing the speed limit would truly fix the problem.
The county uses Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) guidelines to establish consistent speed limits based on conditions. County engineer Don Kudo said a recent TAC study on the road indicated that the posted speed limit was appropriate.
Councillor Doug Breen said he faces the same problem on his road near Rockwood and suggested that the problem is drivers are ignoring speed limits.
“The problem is nobody is driving 80, that’s certainly the problem in Rockwood and that’s certainly the problem throughout the county,” Breen said.
Town of Erin mayor Allan Alls said he gets more calls about speeding than any other concern and guessed this was the same in the other member municipalities.
Warden Kelly Linton said using TAC guidelines for speed limits is the best approach for consistency but agreed something needed to be done.
He said he’d like to work with OPP Inspector Paul Richardson on a bigger picture approach including targeted enforcement and speed blitzs to deal with aggressive driving.
“I’m really interested in seeing what we can put together,” Linton said. “I think we have to work with the OPP and develop a holistic approach to this.”
