After listening to the discussions and arguments over Weyburn’s speed limits, and the council eventually went to a vote on the issue, I couldn’t help but think what an awful waste of time all of that was, particularly when they ended up with (surprise, surprise) the status quo.
Seriously, what was the point of all that? They had the city engineer, Nader Keshta, and his staff go to all the work of research, looking into every possible scenario that might work for Weyburn, and in the end didn’t do anything, other than some really minor tweaks of the city’s traffic bylaw.
Now, I realize the issue is much more complex than that, and there is a possibility that arterial routes may yet be set at 50 km/h, but for the time being, all speed limits remain the same.
The one that just irritates me is the school and playground zone one. By all means, during school hours, have the zone at 30 km/h — but seriously, how ludicrous is it to drive through a school zone on a Sunday afternoon and have to do 30, or go through it at 11 p.m. Give your heads a shake! It does not in any way increase safety to crawl through there at 30 when there is no one around!
Mayor Marcel Roy had good points to make, including that some of the onus is on the driver to be alert and responsible. The way the councillors were talking, drivers have no ability to observe anything or control their vehicles or handle the blazing hot speed of 50 km an hour.
Here’s a question — how on earth do any of them handle it when they drive to Regina? Or pretty well any other urban community? Are they freaking out that they can’t handle a speed of 50 km an hour? No, I really don’t think so.
I have to strongly agree with Coun. Brad Wheeler, when he pointed out, quite correctly, that the speed of 40 was set long, long, long ago when vehicles had no power steering or any of the safety features all cars and trucks and SUVs now have.
There is a time and place for everything, and yes there is a purpose and place for a 30km/h zone, in the vicinity of schools and playgrounds when children are in school, or are at the playground or spray park. There needs to be a reasonable and logical way to deal with that, but leaving it status quo is not it.
The mayor pointed out that polls strongly indicated a different viewpoint than the people who called up their councillors to complain, but on the other hand, Coun. Jeff Chessall had a valid point about the poll questions not being worded very well.
That could be fixed with a properly worded poll — but I would wonder whether council members would even listen to that, since as one councillor noted, it’s not a plebiscite.
