Anyone fed up with unsafe traffic and driving behaviour in Bradford could soon see some solutions.
The town held the last of three public information and consultation (PIC) meetings, giving residents a chance to review and comment on the draft of the new traffic mitigation strategy, at the BWG Leisure Centre on March 6.
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 calming guide to ensure traffic-calming measures are added to existing streets using a consistent process, based on measurable data.
Display boards set up in the centre’s front hall expanded on the preliminary work of previous meetings, by explaining the process proposed for evaluating requests and implementing various forms of traffic calming as well as the metrics that would warrant each in different situations, such as average traffic volumes, speeds, the type of road involved, the desired outcome and cost.
Compared to the Transportation Association of Canada’s (TAC) template with 13 steps, the process for Bradford has been simplified to follow six steps, with initial priority given to pedestrian crossings and stop signs, based on feedback from town staff.
“We really wanted to put it front and centre that we have special tools created for that,” said Hugo Chan, engineer and project manager for consultant Arcadis IBI Group.
While he understands some people may feel the tables and metrics are similar to other municipalities, he also emphasized that the math used to create the strategy was “fine tuned” based on Bradford-specific data to balance the needs of both the urban and rural areas of town.
That helps identify whether traffic calming should be used in certain situations and if so, what options are suitable, but the final decision still comes down to the discretion of town staff with input from the community and traffic safety advisory committee and approval from council.
Chan explained that discretion is important, because selecting the right option for any given situation is “a little bit of an art," as "some devices are better suited than others,” and “each device has it’s own advantages and disadvantages.”
Ward 5 Coun. Peter Ferragine, who chairs the committee, was pleased to see the strategy coming together and hopes it will make the process easier for the public to understand.
“A lot of this is being created by the residents for the residents. That’s why we have these — this is our third meeting now — so we can get input from the public,” he said.
Part of the process involves evaluating each complaint about traffic by scoring the problem with points assigned based multiple factors, and Ferragine hopes those scores will provide a more objective perspective for residents.
“Unfortunately, right now, a lot of it is perception. Everybody’s street is the worst street in town,” he said.
While the committee already relies on traffic counts and speed data, Ferragine hopes the additional information collected and the scoring provided will “take the data to another level,” and the strategy will provide and prioritize solutions “to handle the town as a whole.”
“You can’t just throw Band-Aid solutions down everywhere,” he said.
That aspect resonated with resident Lorenzo Nugara.
“It puts it into perspective for someone who doesn’t know the terminology ... (a score of) 24 out of 75, that means something,” he said. “A non-engineer can look at it and understand where the decisions are coming from.”
As someone who has previously requested a stop sign and felt “blind to the fact” of why it was denied, Nugara appreciated that the strategy not only provides explanations, but also offers other options for consideration.
“It’s pretty good,” he said.
A demonstration showed how the criteria could be applied to hypothetical requests for streets like West Park Avenue and Miller Park Avenue, giving participants a chance to see how the strategy would actually work.
As someone who had attended the first meeting on Sept. 27, Lindsay Kuhne found it “really interesting” to see the kinds of solutions available and understand “the different thresholds” necessary for the town to actually implement them.
“I’m interested to see how the town uses it,” she said.
Kuhne notices that current efforts don’t seem to be working in places like Collings Avenue, where she sees drivers “slalom” around flexible posts rather than slowing down, despite groups of children — including her son — playing in the neighbourhood and the presence of a nearby school.
“There are a lot of issues in town that can be saved,” she said, adding she’s looking forward to finding out which areas of town will received which types of devices.
In future, Ferragine is also hoping to work with builders and developers of new neighbourhoods to ensure traffic calming is installed from the start, instead of the town trying to retrofit it after the fact.
The draft strategy will incorporate public feedback and should be presented to council in early May.
For more information, or to view the document, visit townofbwg.com/tms.
