Councillor Castro Liu - Summary of meeting with Richmond Hill Traffic staff

Councillor Castro Liu  - Summary of meeting with Richmond Hill Traffic staff

Thank you to those who emailed me their concerns regarding traffic safety in our neighborhood. The responses I received was overwhelming.

Last Thursday, I met with our traffic staff and they provided me with the following list of options that were discussed during our meeting:

1.     Speed bumps

Pros: Effective way to reduce speeding behavior

Cons:

·      Impact to response time for emergency vehicles

·      Some residents expressed concerns regarding the location of speed bumps (e.g. located outside their driveway)

·      Impact response time for emergency vehicles

·      Residents concerned with location of speed bumps (e.g. outside their driveway)

·      Impact to property value

·      Vehicles are likely to accelerate between bumps

Action: The existing policy requires a petition of 75% from residents in order to consider installing speed bumps. If you are interested, please let me know so that we can start a petition on your behalf.

2.     Reduce speed limit (e.g. 50km to 40km)

Pros: Vehicles will generally reduce vehicle speed

Cons: Will not affect aggressive drivers

Action: Staff will investigate further and may implement on certain collector roads (e.g. Princeton Ave, Toporowski Ave, Boake Trail, and Spadina Rd)

3.     Radar Board

Pros: Proven to effectively reduce speeding behavior

Cons: Cost of radar board is relatively high

Action: As each ward is only warranted three radar boards, staff and I will discuss the possibility of relocating the existing radar boards to high-risk areas.

4.     Speed Camera

Pros: Proven to effectively reduce speeding behavior

Cons: City has limited control as this falls under the province and York Region’s jurisdiction

Action: None at the moment.

5.     Flexible Bollard

Pros:

·      Very cost effective

·      So far proven to be effective

·      A newer option for traffic calming. You may have seen these in Markham and Newmarket

Cons: Need to be removed during wintertime to make way for winter maintenance vehicles.

Action: I will make a motion at Council to conduct a pilot project in our school zones as soon as possible.

6.     Traffic Blitz

A request has been made to York Regional Police to start increasing enforcement of school zones.

We are anticipating some traffic issues around school zones as some families may be reluctant to take school bus or public transit during the pandemic. Please be assured that our bylaw department will coordinate with York Regional Police to ensure the safety of our kids and pedestrians.

7.     Road Watch Program

From the data we have, roughly 5% of the total population are aggressive drivers. With the limited resources, these drivers are hard to catch. Road watch is a community-driven program that provides residents with means to report aggressive or unlawful driving behavior. I encourage residents to utilize this channel. All you need to do is to take down the information of the vehicle (the license plate or a picture of the vehicle) and report it online.

https://www.yrp.ca/en/community/road-watch.asp

Above is just an overview of the outcome of the meeting. I have relayed all traffic concerns to our traffic staff for their review. Staff, myself, along with York Regional Police will continue monitoring the traffic situation in our neighborhood and take appropriate action and adjustments.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.