Instead of lower speed limits for Barrie drivers, residents will get an online poll asking them what they think about road safety.
City council passed a motion to that effect Monday night with no discussion.
City staff will create an online survey to poll residents on road safety and speed changes in Barrie, for feedback about whether they’re in favour of a city-wide reduction or just a reduction in residential areas. There will also be questions about specific streets of concern with respect to road safety and speeding.
Staff will also review data related to near-misses, collisions, injuries and their causes involving vehicles on streets identified by residents and councillors as areas of concern to determine the roads requiring improvements to address safety concerns.
Also to provide strategies, including but not limited to reducing speeds limits, to address and improve the safety of streets identified in the review and report back to Barrie councillors.
This exercise began as a motion to lower the speed limit on Barrie streets by 10 kilometres an hour.
But councillors defeated a motion that included lowering speed limits across the city by 10 km/h in the 2022 budget and look into the cost of replacing signs, which was $175,000 to $250,000 for some streets or $225,000 to $400,000 on all streets.
Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act sets a default municipal speed limit of 50 km/h on streets within cities and other municipalities, but the act also grants the city authority to set speed limits ranging from 40 to 80 km/h, in 10 km/h intervals.
The speed limit on most Barrie streets is 50 km/h, although it’s 60 km/h on some roads and 40 km/h in community safety zones at select times.
