Letter: Cardiff road speeding solutions

Dear Mr. Schaefer, Director of Corporate Operations:

It’s time for action! For more than five years, we have been shown through the photo radar quarterly reports that Cardiff Road at/near 94th Street has a speeding problem. You are absolutely correct to point out that the design of this road (e.g. narrow and no shoulders) makes it dangerous for our conventional law enforcement officers to enforce the speed limits. The growth of South Glens and Cardiff over the last five years has resulted in making Cardiff Road busier all the time. Since the road has never been upgraded to reflect the growth factor, we all recognize the problems.

From the second quarter results, 45.5 per cent of all the photo enforcement tickets were issued at this site, and this only utilized 10 per cent of the community’s valued photo enforcement time. Still the motorists just won’t slow down. You’ve tried lowering the speed limit twice; this has only made the problem worse. You moved the speed zone change further down the road; this didn’t work. It’s time to put safety of everyone using this road in the forefront, find and implement a solution to fix Cardiff Road.

We no longer have the luxury of time as we did with Cardiff Corner. Something needs to be done, and it needs to be done now. At the very least you need to install a three-way stop sign on the corner of Cardiff Road and 94th street. If I were a resident of South Glens, I would not be looking at this as a request, but rather a demand. After all, don’t they have the right to the same safety measures as the rest of the community?

Three months ago I sent you an e-mail outlining some possible solutions to the traffic problems in our community. I have never received a response from you, and probably never will. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I will agree with you when you tell us that Morinville has a speeding problem. After all, you can use the data from photo enforcement to prove this. We’ve had photo enforcement in town long enough to point out where the trouble spots exist, and now it’s time to take this data and fix the problems.

Photo enforcement was never designed to be a solution to speeding problems; rather it was intended to be a tool to help us determine where they exist. In closing, I will add this small comment, “If you know where the problems exist and chose not to do anything, does that not make you part of the problem”.

Yours Sincerely,

Richard Price
Morinville Tax Payer

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1 Comment

  1. An excellent letter Mr. Price – I sincerely hope that you directed this to ALL Council members AND the CAO personally because, as you noted, the chances of getting ANY response from this particular individual range from Slim to None – and Slim just left town!

    You are probably also aware that Schaefer has neither the authority nor the will to come up with a REAL solution to the problem, so Council must step up and get this odious mess under control.

    C’mon Mayor – PLEASE at least TRY to exercise a little leadership here… Just think of the wonderful photo op as ground is broken on the start of an upgrade to that road.

    Have a nice day.

    James O’Brien

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