The third study since 2007, is being conducted by the Department of Transportation to examine the speed limit on Route 126, in front of Magnetic Hill School.
The speed limit is currently 70 km/h, but due to safety concerns, parents and members of the Anglophone East District Education Council would like to see it reduced to 50km/h.
Transportation Minister Bill Fraser met this week with members of the Parent School Support Committee and Vice-Chair for the Anglophone East District Education Council Angela Lawson.
Fraser says, “We have already done two reviews and we have two reports internally, so now we have committed to do an independent report with Crandall Engineering who have expertise in that field. We expect to have a full report from that study in November with a recommendation. They will do a full traffic analysis and a full study of the area. They will also be meeting with the PSSC and others in the area. We also installed cameras to monitor traffic when the school season started this year. For a full three days we had full video footage of all the traffic flow and it confirmed that one of the issues is the parking lot and the drop off zone for the students and the buses. Back in June, during a meeting, the Principal at the time, said that speed was not the primary concern. One of the concerns was the location of the parking area, and I had made a recommendation that the members of the DEC need to do a study to look at that.”
Fraser has also committed to following the recommendation from Crandall Engineering, “If they say the speed limit needs to be lowered, that will happen. If they say it should not, then I will not reduce the speed limit.”
Lawson says, “We are responsible for students safety and we are doing more than is in our scope, because we feel this is a real concern. One of things the Minister brought to our attention was, if the DEC wanted, we could prioritize changes to the parking lot in our Capital Budget. Although true, that is difficult to realize because while we get our couple of million dollars for Capital improvements, most of the money is put into requirements for things we have to do to keep our buildings open. So it’s not that we don’t want to prioritize this, and that we don’t feel it is important, we just don’t have enough money.”
Lawson is also concerned that the risk to students is now even greater than before, because there is an indication that traffic flow in front of the school has increased.
Earlier this year, Karen DeGrasse, who is a parent at the school, launched a petition, asking for the support of others who also were concerned about the student safety, due to the speed limit. That petition received over seven hundred signatures.
Fraser responded, “I am not going to arbitrarily set a speed limit without having scientific data behind it. I am not a professional Engineer myself and I do not have that expertise. I have to ensure that the decisions we make are in the best interests of those they are going to affect. “
But Lawson says, “We asked for a precedence in other provinces with a standard of rural speed zones of 50 kilometres an hour and urban zone of 30 km/h. The Engineer at the meeting advised us that those decisions are rarely based on scientific evidence.”
Another decision that came from the meeting, was to consider a sign with flashing lights, at the base of the hill to indicate a school zone ahead. The Minister agreed, if the Engineering firm felt that could be done, without any risk to safety on Route 126.
Earlier this year, the DEC hired retired RCMP officer Mike Reade who prepared a report, to say a decrease in the speed limit is warranted. The Minister responded, “His expertise is different than that of a professional Engineer, and that is why we have committed to doing another study.”
Vice-Chair Angela Lawson says she wasn’t completely satisfied with this week’s meeting outcome, “In my opinion, this a politically driven decision. The speed limit reduction petition was introduced in the legislature by the Opposition party and as a result, it seems as though the department is refusing to change their decision despite the evidence we’ve provided them with.”
Fraser responded, “What I find very surprising, and very shocking, is that the first report was done in 2007. When Sherry Wilson became the MLA in 2010, and she was an MLA for the governing party at the time, this issue wasn’t raised by her or her government. So from 2010 to 2014, Sherry Wilson didn’t seem to think there were any issues, or that anything had to be fixed. When I became aware of the issue, I acted immediately.”
Lawson is concerned that the risk to students is now even greater than before, because there is an indication that traffic flow in front of the school has increased.
