POLL: City testing new way to make school zones safer

Dionne said that speed in school zones is always an issue, but he doesn’t think most do so deliberately.

“They’re thinking of something else, they’re going the speed limit, ‘oh, I’m in a school zone, I didn’t realize I was supposed to slow down.’”

Saskatchewan Rivers School Division (SRSD) director of education Robert Bratvold said he has spoken with principals concerned about speed and the volume of traffic near some of the schools.

“I think those concerns are real … and we need to make our spaces safer for our kids, but we also recognize they’re roads and they are for vehicles, so we have to make sure that whatever we do supports the safety of the kids and make the traffic flow well at the same time.”

He said the school division has been working with the City to make the school zones safer for children. The schools are also teaching students safe traffic habits, including how to correctly use a crosswalk.

Bratvold said the SRSD has worked with the City to ensure that signage indicating the speed limit or school zones are clear.

“But we’re also exploring some possibilities about having mobile signs sort of rolled out near the schools at the beginning of the school day and taken back in at the end of the day just to give that additional signal to motorists that lots of kids might be in the area.”

Last fall, council agreed to go ahead with the pilot project aimed at decreasing speeding. The public works department tabled a report that recommended testing the effectiveness of traffic calming islands in the large school zone on Olive Diefenbaker Drive.

It’s only a trial run because some of the councillors were hesitant to use traffic calming devices, Dionne said. “But I believe before that trial period is over, you’re going to see a lot more of them up. Because people are demanding it.”

Wes Hicks, acting director of the public works department said the pilot project was designed to last one school year and to gauge whether the public accepts it. He said the department is inviting the public’s feedback on the islands.

“Some people might like it, some people may dislike it, but we’d like to know how they feel about it.”

Hicks said the location chosen for the pilot project because the City received several complaints about it. “And because there are two schools side by side, it gave us an opportunity to do a couple of intersections in a row and see what kind of impact that gives us with slowing down the vehicles or maybe we find that they’re actually impeding traffic in other ways,” he said.

Dionne is already looking to other areas of the city where he feels speeding is “really bad.”

“We have Queen Mary [Community School] in the West Flat and then we have some issues on 15th Street with another school, so we’ve got to get something done,” Dionne added.

But speeding is also an issue across the river on Riverside Drive. The mayor said this would be a “great place” to put traffic calming devices.

While islands are the tool of choice right now, the City is also looking at the possibility of using speed bumps, islands that jut out of the curb and narrow the space to drive through, and roundabouts.

The City set aside $18,000 for the project, Dionne said.

“We were actually going to put the island in and the side curbs, but we just decided [to use] the islands, so, we’re well under budget.”

During the trial period, public works staff will monitor the effectiveness of the traffic calming islands using unmarked trucks, Dionne said. He said they will be out next week because it’s the start of the school year and the traffic divisions will be in the school zones, as well.

“If enforcement and traffic calming devices don’t work, then you’ll see stiffer penalties coming.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames

by Thia James

POLL: City testing new way to make school zones safer

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