Street safety concerns discussed by Town Council

Chris Davis, Pincher Creek Voice

Related: Main Street traffic concerns aired before Town Council

At their March 26 meeting Town Council discussed the street safety concerns raised by citizen Vic Walker at their previous meeting of March 12.

"I've been looking around other communities," said Councillor Sahra Hancock.  "I've been trying to find similar models of how arterial roads next to recreation facilities adjacent to residential facilities manage for speed and safety and I haven't seen too many playground zones unless there's an actual playground."


"I did see a lot of variety in terms of signage and the markings for pedestrian areas," Hancock continued,  "A lot more use of the big white painted 'X'es and the big white painted lines. I saw some communities that had those flashing yellow lights, pedestrian operated, so that if there was a time when there was a higher concentration of people walking across the street."

Hancock reposted the Voice article linked to at the top of this article on her Facebook page earlier in the week, looking for feedback from interested citizens.
"Most of the comments centred around pedestrians also needing to be responsible for their own behavior and safety, and a lot of comments around enforcement being one of the issues rather than reducing the speed limit."

Councillor Roy Smyth made a motion that "Council consider instituting a 30 kilometer speed limit on Main Street from Robertson to Hewetson."

"I do feel that now that we know there's an issue, by not doing anything we could set ourselves up for criticism down the road, and I really don't think honestly that any person with any concern for the well-being of our community would be doing 50 kilometres in that stretch," said Smyth.  "There is traffic that is, and I can tell you that early this morning a vehicle went through that intersection and he was smokin'.  I don't know why he was doing the speed he was.  I talked to the police about the issue that brought Vic Walker here last year, and certainly they said to me 'if you had a speed limit of 30 through there we would have ways to control the stunting that is going on."

Councillor Lorne Jackson agreed with Smyth. "I really think there could be a speed bump around the Recreation area because on more than one occasion I've had a pretty close encounter with a kid darting across the street there, maybe someone going a little faster than I was, or maybe someone not paying enough attention...we could be seeing someone seriously injured there," said Jackson.

As an aside, I've seen that kind of near-miss occur many times while covering sports stories at the location Jackson was talking about, in front of the MCC Arena.

Councillor Wayne Oliver commented "Roy, your motion is such that it forces the card right now without investigating into it from downtown merchants or other people, but living in the community for 20 years I never drive 50 K downtown because it's tight, there's lots of people around, that sort of thing.  So, I was wondering though, it seems like a quick reaction to make it all the way from the Legion to the Library without fleshing it out and discussing it with no more than a five minute discussion around this table."

"I'm amenable to that," said Smyth, "I did bring this motion several months ago."

"From the enforcement issue," said Councillor Hancock, "for the Police to say that they could address the stunting with higher penalties it needs to be a playground zone."  She mentioned that playground zones were only in effect until nightfall.

"Stunting is stunting as far as I believe," said Oliver.  "You can get a ticket for stunting in the parking lot at Wal-Mart just as easily as you can on Main Street. I think if the speed limit is 30 then it gives the Police more avenue for the person that rapidly accelerates from the stop sign."

"It comes back to enforcement," Oliver concluded.

"I don't think anybody has been ticketed for stunting at that corner," said Mayor Ernie Olsen.  If they're going to stunt, it doesn't matter if the speed limit after that corner is 30 or if it's 50 or it's 100.  There's stunting at that corner. That's the noise corner. That's where they're stepping on the gas, that's where young kids are leaving rubber, taking off, it doesn't matter if the speed limit was 30 there, it just wouldn't make any difference."

Oliver raised the possibility of putting cameras on the corner in question.  "My only concern with that is, how many other corners then are we going to have to place cameras at," said Mayor Olsen.

Councillor Hancock suggested the word "consider" be removed from Councillor Smyth's motion to respect proper form.

Council, with Councillor Smyth's approval, decided to defer the until the next Committee of the Whole meeting.