Mount Pearl Deputy Mayor Jim Locke is renewing his call for the City to install speed bumps on some streets.
“We all said this during the last election campaign and for me this was the number one issue,” Locke reminded his fellow councillors during their public meeting last week.
The issue arose during a discussion of the Transportation and Public Safety Committee report.
The chairperson of that committee, councillor Paula Tessier, noted the City has been getting complains from some residents about speeding and staff are monitoring the situation and analyzing data collected from street monitoring signs.
“I’m not sure everybody realizes that, but those solar powered street monitors actually collect data and we use that data when we start to get complaints,” Tessier said. “Also our MEOs (Municipal Enforcement Officers) are going to be ticketing violators. They do it, we’re going to continue to do it, and there may come a point, depending on how problematic an area is, when we might actually have to concentrate on that.”
That’s when Locke weighed into the debate, saying he’d like to know how many tickets have been issued.
Locke said residents are asking about speed bumps. When he raised the subject during his first days as a councillor, he noted, he was told speed bumps are problematic for Metrobus and for city plows during winter snow clearing operations.
“And someone said, ‘If you put one on one street, you’ll have to put them on 50 streets,” Locke added. “Well, my view is if 50 streets need them, you put in 50 speed bumps to reduce any particular casualties.”
Locke urged the committee to consider installing speed bumps on those streets where the data indicate speeding is a problem.
“I’d suggest we could put them in temporarily and then take them up,” Locke said, arguing speeding isn’t as bad during the winter months. “We could keep them down say until November, and then take them up so that our snow plows don’t have to worry about them. I’m just throwing it out there as food for thought so the committee can have a look at it.”
Tessier agreed that the argument in the past was that speed bumps were problematic for Metrobus, snow plows and emergency vehicles. “But now we’re seeing that there are different styles of speed bumps that may be available temporarily,” she said, adding the committee is looking at different varieties.
While the data indicates that in some places speeding isn’t as big a problem as some people think, there are “hot spots” Tessier said where some kind of action is needed.
“We need the data to back it up,” Tessier said.
“I like the idea of more research on it,” Mayor Randy Simms said. “I am not a fan of speed bumps at all, but having said that, there may be places (where they are needed). There is one thing for sure we can say about them: if you want to slow people down, they slow people down. Of that there is no doubt. I just sometimes think that some things are overreactions… But I am glad to see that you are researching it.”
Councillor Dave Aker said the City must be careful to target only those streets that have speeding problems, but agreed with Locke that speed bumps should be part of the “arsenal” when it comes to combating problem driving.
