Traffic Safety

By and far, the issue that I heard about the most on the campaign trail was traffic safety:

“People drive too fast on this road.”

“People don’t stop at the stop sign.”

“The pot holes are making it unsafe for travel.”

“the bicyclists are disrupting traffic.”

This issue is one that obviously extends beyond Oro-Medonte’s boundaries. No matter where you are in Ontario, you will see signs; slow down, children at play / Drive like you live here. the problem being is that we all drive too fast, sometimes even within our own communities.

One of the acts so far in this term of council was to form a Traffic Safety advisory committee, of which i’m proud to Chair with my colleague Councillor Hutcheson. We sought input from the community and have a group of well rounded individuals who have practical and technical experience in dealing with traffic and transportation from various stakeholder positions, as well as an OPP representative.

So what are the goals, and more importantly what are the steps we are taking to achieve them? One of the first items of business was ensuring that we have an understanding that the problem is not going to be solved with a simple approach, we are tasked with changing driving behaviour. Changing behaviour is HARD. We also were faced with the realization that most of the people speeding in Oro-Medonte are in fact, residents of Oro-Medonte. (save and except for Provincial Roads - Highway 11/400).

So - we need to change behaviour, in order to do that we need to do that head on. That starts with “Slow down for us”. the goal here being that we’re trying to connect peoples habits, with the effects they could have on their loved ones, their friends, their neighbours, the kids in their community. We want to bring peoples hearts to their heads. When driving you need to consider the lives you could be impacting by speeding.

An Example of a “Slow down for us” Social Media Post

This issue is so significant that it has the province’s attention, and they made changes to the Highway Traffic Act to facilitate the use of Automated Speed Enforcement (ASEs) possible. This is the second prong to our strategy. Making sure that we have tools of enforcement to help remind people of the implications of speeding. Bring their wallets to their heads.

In Order to take advantage of the new tools available to the municipalities (ASEs) on of the first things that must be accomplished is establish Community safety zones. I’m happy to report that today on August 14th, 2024 Council has passed a number of new community safety zones on roads under our jurisdiction (i.e., not county or provincial roads) across our community. this was done using a frame work of established meeting places, parks, schools, public wharfs, and other community spaces where people and especially children are expected to congregate.

The Staff report can be found here.

Various new Community safety zones