Coun. Jim Harris has set his sights on traffic calming.
The Ward 8 councillor was delighted with the recent news that the city has commenced a pilot project to install a new metal police officer-shaped cutout in Barrie's residential neighbourhoods to hopefully calm traffic. However, concerns still exist for residents both in his ward and city-wide.
“Traffic calming has been a significant concern for Ward 8 residents, particularly on streets that are near parks, schools and seniors homes,” Harris said this week in an interview with BarrieToday. “With the amount of road work happening in the ward this year, the resulting increase of cut-through traffic through residential streets has heightened this concern.
“I am pleased to see city staff trying to implement new methods to prompt drivers to slow down,” he added.
Harris said he first heard of the cutout options when doing personal research into traffic calming, as he was hearing from residents that the solutions the city had in place weren’t quite enough to solve the problem.
“At present, Ward 8 only has only seven speed cushions and the use of one radar speed board, so... in an effort to assist, I have provided residents signs that they can use that offers a friendly reminder to drivers to mind their speed,” he said.
Harris hopes the police officer cutout serves to help reduce driver speed, even if only briefly. If nothing else, he says he’s pleased with the additional attention the issue has been receiving due to the new idea.
“Certainly, it will offer a time-limited reminder of the financial cost for speeding – the potential of being ticketed by police,” he said.
In the long run, Harris said awareness is the most important consideration.
“The real, lasting impetus for changing the speed one drives will be an increase in awareness and respect for the safety of all that walk, cycle and drive on our city streets,” he said. “On the proactive side, as residents we can make a significant contribution to making our streets safer by ensuring that we drive exactly how we would want others to drive in our neighbourhoods.”
For more information on the city’s traffic-calming measures, click here.
