By Sheldon Spackman

Keeping It Safe

County council approves lower speed limit for Poplar Ridge Estates

Dec 17, 2020 | 2:50 PM

A safer neighbourhood is the goal behind Red Deer County council’s approval this week of a bylaw lowering the speed limit in the Poplar Ridge Estates subdivision west of Red Deer.

The bylaw approval on Tuesday will see the speed limit on all internal subdivision roads within Poplar Ridge drop from 50km/hr to 30 km/hr.

First and second readings of the bylaw were made on December 1 with only three responses received from members of the public since then. Two responses were from long-time Poplar Ridge residents both strongly opposed to lowering the speed limit. The other recommended similar speed reductions in small communities throughout the county, including the hamlets of Markerville and Spruce View.

Councillor Christine Moore said feedback she received regarding the speed limit change was largely supportive.

“There was the odd person, maybe one person who said, why don’t people just drive at the posted speed limit? Well that is the issue because it’s not happening,” said Moore. “I do feel confident that the majority of the community supports this and this bylaw also puts us in compliance with other similar areas, which pleases me, and safety is the most important priority for me.”

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Councillor Dana Depalme agreed that most Poplar Ridge residents seem to be in favour of the speed limit reduction.

“I know the Poplar Ridge area very well and have been in there over many years with my kids going to school there and all their friends that live there,” she said. “The people that I did talk to that live there, they had no problem with it, so I definitely support it.”

Councillor Philip Massier, however, did have some concerns with the speed limit reduction.

“Has there ever been an accident because of the high speed limit?” he asked. “Maybe we don’t know at this time, but my other question of course is what expectations of enforcement do we have now that we’re lowering the speed limit to 30? Do we have a plan to enforce this new speed limit?”

County Manager Curtis Herzberg said he wasn’t aware of any collisions in Poplar Ridge due to high speeds, but added the county would provide education for the public regarding the new change.

“We will be monitoring that, much like we monitored this prior to this decision being contemplated by council,” he explained. “We can go back in and do similar work with our electronics to see how people are doing in terms of abiding by the limits. Of course we would always start with education before we ever got to the point of any heavy enforcement.”

Herzberg said the bylaw is not meant to direct more staff or resources from one area to another.

“Patrol will handle this in its due course as it does monitor the speeds in these multi-lot areas around the city, both routinely and maybe as indicated through complaints,” he explained.

“We wouldn’t start with a flurry of tickets necessarily. We’ll start with monitoring and education first and go from there.”