Bradford is rolling out new ways to tackle traffic and paving the way for safer streets.
Anyone who feels fed up with Bradford’s traffic woes or who feels there are people driving too fast, too carelessly or in a manner otherwise unsafe, take note; this is your chance to help transform the town.
Residents will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the latest iteration of the town’s traffic mitigation strategy during a public meeting, which the town is aiming to hold sometime in late September, but the exact time, date and location have yet to be determined.
Hugo Chan, traffic engineer from Arcadis IBI Group, made a presentation to the community and traffic safety advisory committee at their meeting on Aug. 16, which included an overview of the strategy so far.
According to the presentation, the strategy is intended to create two separate guides, a design guide to ensure all new roads include traffic calming from the outset, and a traffic calming guide to ensure traffic-calming measures are added to existing streets using a consistent process, based on measurable data.
That last point is something particularly important to committee chair and Ward 5 Coun. Peter Ferragine.
“This council, our No. 1 strategic priority is speeding in town. It’s getting worse, but having said that, we have to be data driven,” he said.
That approach serves the committee on two fronts: ensuring calming goes where it’s really needed, and ensuring money isn’t wasted elsewhere.
During one meeting of the committee, Ferragine recalled staff presenting a map that showed which streets had complaints about speeding.
“The entire road network was highlighted, so everybody has complaints about speeding on their street,” he said.
As a result, the committee plans to rely heavily on traffic volumes and speed counts to prioritize the most important streets for traffic-calming devices.
“We have to be smart, because No. 1 we’d be digging into a budget that we don’t necessarily have for every street in town, and No. 2 we’d be placing them in places that don’t require it. ... If we’re going on the data and it’s one of the top streets, we’re going to do something about that,” he said.
In deciding which devices should be used on which roads, there could be a different thresholds to consider whether or not the addition is warranted, according to Paul Dubniak, transportation technologist for the town.
“Certain requests have specific data that will be utilized for warrants. Primarily the data inputs are speed, volume, pedestrian movements and axle counts (breaks down traffic into vehicle type). Other data that maybe considered through public consultation could be distance from and amount of vulnerable road users i.e. a school etc.,” he said via email.
When it comes to the different traffic-calming devices being recommended, the presentation includes a variety of examples including:
- roundabouts
- curb extensions
- chicanes
- speed humps/cushions
- raised crosswalks
- raised intersections
- raised centre median
- pavement markings
- turn restrictions
- radar speed signs
- automated speed enforcement in community safety zones
- temporary low-cost curb extensions
The new guides could include photos and diagrams of different devices along with detailed descriptions for each, including: purpose, cost, signage, applicability, dimensions, design constraints, impacts, advantages and disadvantages.
“I know that the speed humps are effective, however, at the same time, I don’t want to load our entire town with them,” Ferragine said, adding that he’s particularly interested in the potential for speed cameras, which can be moved around to correct bad habits all over town.
Despite delays, Ferragine emphasized that the town is still moving ahead with speed cameras, but changes to regulations and availability meant the committee needed more time to decide the specifics.
“We would have liked them already implemented, but we wanted to make sure we were going with the right ones for our municipality. Hopefully, by the end of this year beginning of next year, we’ll have a program started,” he said.
The town already has some guidelines in place, including a traffic calming report from 2019, a speed hump installation guide from 2022 and a series of warrants and protocols from 2015, which were updated in 2022.
In addition, the town also makes use of the Ontario Traffic Manual (OTM) and Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) and Ontario Traffic Council (OTC) guidelines and warrants.
However, Dubniak explained that it was time for an updated approach.
“As the town continues to grow, development of a strategy became important to create that unified, consistent approach that is upfront and open to all. Sometimes warrants set out for highways doesn’t necessarily work in every instance and the committee is looking to review the current warrants and how they can be revised to fit for a made-in-BWG approach,” he said.
That approach could include a flow chart for how the committee and staff would respond to resident requests for traffic calming, a catalogue of accepted traffic-calming methods and the thresholds each requires for implementation as well as identifying any gaps in existing data or the data collection process.
For example, the presentation includes a heat map of where the majority of speeding occurs in town, and Ferragine wants to continually update those counts, to ensure the data stays relevant as the town grows, new roads open and new connections are made with existing roads.
The presentation also compared approaches used by other municipalities including Oshawa, Innisfil, New Tecumseth, Orangeville, and Caledon and while many shared a similar three-step process for implementing traffic-calming, the specific requirements varied across all four, and Dubniak is hoping residents who attend the first of three public meetings on the subject can help staff find the right approach specific to Bradford.
“We hope at this initial meeting, residents will attend and have discussions with staff on hand. It will be a learning opportunity for residence on how the current process works as well as what guideline are involved with the road network,” he said.
Staff are hoping to hear how different residents use the road network across different modes, like driving, walking, cycling or taking transit; whether they have children in school and if so, how they travel there; what residents view as effective traffic calming; which measures they would prioritize and on which roads they would prioritize having them.
Ferragine echoed those sentiments.
“I’m really interested to hear what comes up, because staff has given us many different options previously, and we’ve taken a look at different ways we can try to implement different ideas, but maybe some new ideas will come up that we haven’t thought of,” he said.
In the same vein, Ferragine is also hoping residents will better understand the committee’s perspective.
“I hope that they leave with a more open mind when they actually see how we conduct our speed counts and how we take a look at each individual street. I’m hoping to get some education out there for the residents,” he said.
