Anyone planning to speed down Northgate Drive as a shortcut through Bradford might want to pump their brakes.
Based on a recommendation from the community and traffic safety advisory committee, council approved three sets of speed humps for the west end of the street during its April 2 meeting.
Those are expected to be located between six and seven Northgate, at the hydro corridor, and between 26 and 29.
The decision came only after some bumpy debate around the council table.
Mayor James Leduc had supported similar humps on Veterans Street at the previous meeting of council, but said he couldn’t support the humps on Northgate based on correspondence he had with Bradford West Gwillimbury Fire and Emergency Services, part of which he read during the meeting.
The letter claimed each speed hump adds 30 seconds of response time for firefighting vehicles, which it claimed was the same amount of time it takes for a fire to double in size.
“Fire has said it does impact their service,” the mayor said. “I was told that we refer to emergency services in these conversations, but they inform me that they have not once responded to the traffic committee’s comments or have never been asked to comment.”
He also read from correspondence he had with Sarah Mills, the director and chief of paramedic services for the County of Simcoe, which said some traffic-calming measures are more accommodating to ambulances than others.
“Speed humps ... require ambulances to slow to almost a complete stop ... and can potentially cause serious safety risks to paramedics and patients in the back,” Leduc read from the letter which further explained that elevated crosswalks with their larger surface area and flat tops are less troublesome.
The mayor also noted the importance of Northgate as a collector road which provides the only access for emergency services to some neighbourhoods, unlike Veterans, from which only Blackwell Crescent is dependant for access.
At 1.6 kilometres long, Northgate connects Line 8 to Professor Day Drive, and as a result of the various crescents and culs de sac that branch off of it, a report from Paul Dubniak, transportation technologist for the town, estimates there are about 630 homes from which motor vehicle access is dependant on Northgate.
The mayor also noted that Northgate is only ranked 19 on the list of roads in town based on the percentage of speeding.
“I just hate to jump the gun,” he said. “I’ve heard us all say it’s all about data, data, data, and the data doesn’t support this today.”
In response, Ward 5 Coun. Peter Ferragine, chair of the committee, explained that of the 18 roads ahead of Northgate on the list some are either arterial or rural roads which are not well-suited to traffic calming and more likely to receive automated speed enforcement (ASE), which means Northgate and other remaining roads are bumped up in priority.
He also explained that as a collector road, Northgate sees greater traffic volume, meaning that even if it has the same percentage of speeding as a less busy road, the total number of speeders will be greater.
“The information can be skewed in the way that we look at the ranking part of it,” he said, adding that as a result of the repaving of Line 8 expected to last six-eight weeks in early summer, “Northgate is going to be used as a bypass 100 per cent.”
The mayor concluded that he would have preferred to wait for the town’s traffic mitigation strategy, which is expected to be presented to council in May or June, and could offer a better variety of “out-of-the-box” solutions like road diets, raised crosswalks, bollards or 3D painted images on the road.
Deputy Mayor Raj Sandhu also questioned why the committee didn’t want to wait for the new strategy and why they chose the humps over the other recommended options, which included: bollards, flashing radar signs, ASE, painted markings to reduce lane widths and a raised crosswalk at the hydro corridor.
In response Ferragine explained that the decision was made based on the discussion had by the committee and the input from residents, multiple of whom have been asking for a solution on the street “every single year since this committee started.”
Based on the report, the committee has discussed issues on Northgate 13 times between 2015 and 2023, with issues ranging from speeding and stop requests to transit and parking issues.
Previous traffic calming measures along the street have included temporary flashing radar boards, flexible bollards and the warning radar speed camera.
“It always seems like no matter what we try to do, it’s the wrong decision,” Ferragine said. “Speed humps we know work. We’ve seen the data. We have them around town already.”
Ward 6 Coun. Nickolas Harper who also sits on the committee and represents the area residents said that on Saturday he “knocked on every door” on the street and 95 per cent of residents who responded told him they wanted speed humps; whereas, only four per cent wanted ASE and only one per cent wanted bollards.
“We are a committee that has done its due diligence,” he said.
Further to the issue of timing, Ferragine said that while the traffic mitigation strategy is coming, the committee still wants to make headway in the meantime.
“Our strategic priority was to create safety on our streets. ... We put more money into the committee so that we can do something about it, so here was are doing something about it,” he said.
Ward 4 Coun. Joseph Giordano, who also sits on the committee, added that while construction on Line 8 is expected to exacerbate issues along Northgate, that street and Blue Dasher Boulevard (which has speed humps) are already being used as a “bypass” for residents trying to access commercial plazas, and a Catholic elementary school.
The only members of council who voted against the humps were the mayor and deputy mayor.
Based on past projects, the cost of the humps is expected to be about $10,000 and funded from the committee’s traffic mitigation fund, which was approved at $135,000 for 2024.
