Ask-A-Candidate Question 5

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QUESTION ADDRESSED TO MORINVILLE COUNCIL AND MAYORAL CANDIDATES

I have lived on 95 Street and 95 Avenue for many years. The traffic flow and the speed which the vehicles are traveling at has steadily increased. In fact, one of the council members winds up with vehicles on his front lawn every winter due to high speeds and winter
conditions. This is the house where our children wait for the bus.

There are multiple children living on our street, most of them are in Elementary school. Residents have made numerous suggestions to fix this issue such as; 1) A sidewalk on the opposite side of the street to narrow the road thus forcing vehicles to slow down. 2) Putting speed bumps in place. 3) Dead ending the road to stop people from using it as a thorough fair. 4) Reducing the speed limit to 30K.

The only “solutions” that have been implemented was to put radar on our street for a short period of time, obviously people saw the vehicle, slowed down while the radar was in place and then immediately resumed their speed.

As a concerned resident of 95 Avenue and 95 Street, [I ask] what is your plan to make our street a safer place for the residents and especially the children that live here?

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4 Comments

  1. PLEASE NOTE – Only Candidates may post comments to this posting. Morinvillenews.com welcomes reader comments on our articles, but we wish to keep these particular segments open for candidates alone so that readers do not have to separate who is and is not vying for their vote.

  2. Thank you for your comments and concerns:

    As a former resident that used to live around the corner of these streets I know exactly what you mean. I use to ride this road every day and saw what you are still seeing. Unfortunately; speeding in our town seems to be the number 1 hobby for some motorists. This type of situation/problem is not only in your area but across town. Just be around the High School prior to class starting and after school, you would think they are in a drag race, with their parent new pickup (if only the parent knew what heir new truck was being used for). Look at 99 Street between Sobeys and the County Office; motorists are using this road for a short cut, which is good, but they also use it as a speedway.

    Your suggestions are great, however I believe we should be working on traffic signs, warnings, and educating, that way if they are at fault this will hurt their pocket book as we have seen on 100 Avenue and 100 Street making traffic flow a little safer. We are not completely there yet, but we are working on it.

    Council discussed your situation and the same for other areas of town with speeders on the loose. We looked at reducing the speed limit (only myself and another Councillor voted for it), put up more stop signs, photo radar, more patrol (by Peace Officers and RCMP), speed bumps and so on.

    I agree that photo radar is not the solution it was only a bandage to the situation. I will be asking the Transportation Committee (if elected as your Mayor) to review not only your street but all streets in town to see how we can make them more safe not only to stop speeders but how to make our roads have more of a smooth traffic flow.

    Once again thank you, Joseph Trapani

  3. I thank you for your excellent question and great comments. This has been a long time problem which I have not been able to come up with a viable solution. In my wisdom I felt that stop signs at 97 would perhaps slow traffic but that only worked for a few and if you listen to some people who drive the route they complain of an inconvenience on their journey. You are absolutely right when you talk about safety for residents and more importantly the children. One thing to keep in mind and in defense of most drivers, even when driving at the speed limit of 50 it sometimes appears to be speeding over the limit. You mention of a few ideas and a couple I had not thought of and I certainly will, if I am elected ask the traffic committee to perhaps put this on their agenda. We must also keep in mind that speeding in residential areas is a problem through out the town. Recently the city of Edmonton changed the speed to 30 kpm in three neighborhoods because of safety concern over residents and their children. I have always been a strong advocate of a safe community and I always have difficulty understanding what the big rush is going from one end of town to the other.

  4. I drive through that intersection on most weekdays. It is an “L” intersection and I too notice an increase in vehicles at that location.

    The Town has a Traffic Safety Committee with public representation. Rather than create a separate process please call the Town office and have your concern raised and addressed at that Committee.

    I will be encouraging Council to have Town Administration review areas of Town where traffic safety is a concern. There are alternatives that other communities use and we need to look at how best to solve the concerns.

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