speed limit 40

By Troy Gillard

slow down!

Blackfalds council approves lowered speed limit

Mar 28, 2019 | 9:30 PM

Blackfalds drivers will soon be taking things a little bit slower.

Town council has approved a new Traffic Bylaw which will soon see a community-wide speed limit reduction from the current 50 km/hr to 40 km/hr, excluding Highway 2A and existing school and playground zones.

Mayor Richard Poole says the previous Traffic Bylaw had been in effect for roughly five years and now needed updating in hopes of increasing safety for residents.

“Within that bylaw was also an initiative put forward by the Policing Committee that we lower our speed limit from 50 to 40 in the majority of residential areas in Blackfalds,” says Poole.

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However, the move has been met with opposition from some Blackfalds residents who feel a community-wide speed limit reduction is not the way to go.

“The Town of Blackfalds council and Administration refuse to accept that a majority of residents are not in favour of a blanket speed reduction in town,” says an online petition created by Shane Hanson on March 25. “If the council and Administration would like to move forward with a blanket speed reduction, it should be put to a plebiscite.”

Hanson’s petition has over 160 signatures.

Conversely, a second petition in favour of the speed limit reduction has also been created, with nearly 100 supporters so far.

It was created March 25 by Jeremy Deleeuw.

“The town is proposing the speed reduction to improve safety,” Deleeuw’s petition reads. “It seems as though the residence of Blackfalds are fairly divided, so we thought we would conduct our own petition in favour of the speed reduction.”

Despite no official survey going out to residents in advance of the proposed bylaw change, Mayor Poole says reports were reviewed that showed increased safety if council agreed to lower the town-wide speed limit.

“From the Policing Committee, that was a recommendation that came forward based on those reports,” admits Poole.

Poole, however, says council is well-aware of online petitions both in favour and against the new speed limit change.

“When we looked at those, neither of them met the criteria for the MGA (Municipal Government Act) to be accepted as formal petitions to the council,” he explains. “If you look at the MGA, there are some fairly specific conditions that make a petition qualify. One of them is they have to be 10 per cent of the population and neither of them came anywhere close to that number.”

Poole adds another requirement is the petitions have to be signed physically by a petitioner who is putting their name on that petition.

“And, of course, Facebook and online doesn’t allow for that.”

Poole says it’s important to note that council looked at the facts before proposing the Traffic Bylaw changes that included a town-wide speed limit reduction.

“We look at the safety aspect, we look at the pros and cons and when we move forward on this, we move forward based on facts that we were aware of,” declares Poole. “The consultation process came during the Public Hearing and that was in the Bylaw two meetings ago. At that Public Hearing, we had one person that stepped forward and talked against it.”

In addition, Poole says there were 27 submissions from members of the public that council also reviewed as well.

“What we’re talking about aren’t alternatives to reducing the speed limit,” says Poole. “All of the suggestions that came forward were viable but they cost money. Some of them are appropriate for residential streets, some of them are not appropriate for residential streets.”

With the new Traffic Bylaw expected to come into effect June 15, Poole feels council has for now approved the best solution overall to increase safety, without excluding other opportunities to slow down traffic in the future.

“I do appreciate the amount of input that we had from everybody in Blackfalds about this issue,” he exclaims. “It is a contentious one and we can’t make everybody happy with everything that we do. We do think however that we’ve moved forward to make a significantly safer community and I’m quite proud of our council for what they’ve done.”