Municipal council backed away from changing the speed limit on Bonhomme Street, May 3, opting instead to reduce the speed limit to 30 km/h around Centennial Park, the Jasper Activity Centre and both schools.
The new speed limit, which is unlikely to take effect for several months, will impact Maligne Avenue, and sections of Bonhomme Street, Pyramid Lake Road, Giekie Street, Elm Avenue and Turret Street.
Before it can be enforced, administration will have to revise the municipality鈥檚 traffic control bylaw, which is expected to come back before council for discussion on May 24.
Mark Fercho, the town's chief administration officer, couldn't say exactly when the new speed limit would be enforced, but said it will be in place before the new school year in September.
During the meeting, administration presented council with two other motions, both of which were deferred by council for further study.
Those motions included reducing the speed limit to 30 km/h along the entire length of Bonhomme Street, including Cabin Creek Drive and a small section of Patricia Street, as well as reducing the speed limit to 40 km/h across the entire town unless otherwise posted.
Coun. Rico Damota was the first to express his support for the speed zone change around Centennial Park, the Jasper Activity Centre and both schools, but expressed hesitation for the other two motions.
鈥淚t makes sense to me,鈥� said Damota, 鈥淏ut I think ... the other two [motions], seem a bit rushed and piecemeal.
鈥淚 don't think we've done enough and the proper public consultations ...聽 I'd like to get some more feedback from the community on the rest of the proposed changes to the speed zones.鈥�
The original initiative to reduce the speed limit around schools was brought forward in March after the Grande Yellowhead Public School Division requested the municipality pass a bylaw to enforce the 30 km/h school zone 24 hours a day.
In April, the Traffic Advisory Committee took it a step further with a proposal to reduce the speed limit along the entire length of Bonhomme Street to 30 km/h, including Cabin Creek Drive, to improve safety along one of the town鈥檚 busiest residential corridors.
The proposal was then expanded to include a small section of Patricia Street as well as the roads around Centennial Park, the Jasper Activity Centre and the two schools.
When those ideas were brought back before the committee-of-the-whole there was also a suggestion to reduce the speed limit across the entire town to 40 km/h unless otherwise posted.
Ultimately, council unanimously approved the smaller, more refined version of the proposal.
鈥淲hen it was first brought up to us it was a rational and very well presented proposal and then once council got a hold of it, somebody suggested we should add in [more changes] and I just think that a larger townsite study should be done on our speed zones,鈥� said Coun. Brian Nesbitt.
Paul Clarke
[email protected]
