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Speed humps approved for Kettleby Road

November 19, 2014   ·   0 Comments

By Angela Gismondi
Kettleby Road will be getting speed humps, it’s just a question of when.
At a meeting Monday, council directed staff to install traffic calming measures on Kettleby Road. Staff received a petition from the residents of Kettleby Road requesting traffic calming measures west of Keele Street on Kettleby Road. Because the petition was signed by 70 per cent of households on the road, a traffic analysis was conducted.
While the minimum warrants for speed have been met, the current 2014 budget for traffic calming measures has been exhausted, therefore the costs for installation of permanent speed humps on the road will be considered as part of the 2015 budget deliberations.
“The issue of traffic calming has been a hot topic in Kettleby for the last six months in a very serious manner,” said Councillor Debbie Schaefer, adding a Kettleby Road resident was supposed to speak to the matter at the meeting but was unable to attend.
A lot of residents have taken it upon themselves to try and calm traffic, making signs and posting them near the road, Schaefer explained. She said that concern escalated in September when children went back to school and there was more pedestrian traffic on the road.
“Kettleby has a lot of people going through it that is not local traffic, despite the signs ‘local traffic only’” Schaefer said. “A lot of times, drivers realize they are not on a road they intended to be on and just speed up to get through this place and get it over with.”
The major concern expressed by the residents is the speed of the traffic on the road. The road is narrow with gravel shoulders, no sidewalks and the speed is posted at 50 km/h. According to the staff report, traffic counters were deployed the week of Oct. 20 to 24 2014. The data collected indicated that the 85th percentile speed for east bound traffic was 76 km/h and that the 85th percentile speed for west bound traffic was 73 km/h. The Traffic Calming Policy requires that the street’s 85th percentile speed be a minimum of 10 km/h to 15 km/h above the posted speed limit in combination with the traffic volume on a local residential street between 500 and 8,000 vehicles per day in order to implement traffic calming measures. In this particular case the posted speed limit is 50 km/h with a total Annual Average Daily Traffic volume (AADT) of 737 vehicles.
“That’s pretty fast to be going through a little village,” Schaefer noted. “The results substantiated what the residents were saying.”
The implementation of the permanent speed humps is subject to the 2015 budget deliberations and approval. The estimated cost for each permanent speed hump is about $52,500 with a minimum requirement of four units totalling $510,000 to be placed between Keele Street and the new residential lots currently under construction on Kettleby Road.
In addition to not having money to fund the project in this year’s budget, the weather is not conducive to the installation of speed humps, Schaefer pointed out.
“The residents are very pleased that they are getting speed humps come spring,” she said.
The final locations of the speed humps will be determined once the location of the first new driveway for the new home west of Keele Street on Kettleby Road has been finalized, which staff expects to be completed in the spring of 2015. Schaefer hopes the development will not delay the project any further.
“I hope when spring comes along, we won’t find ourselves having to delay on the speed humps because of a driveway,” said Schaefer, thanking staff for their efforts.
Mayor Steve Pellegrini was concerned that only 70 per cent of households signed the petition. Some of the residents might argue they do not want speed humps in front of their homes, he said.
Schaefer explained the humps will not be installed in front of houses.
“Most will be east, off of Keele, not in the core of the village,” said Schaefer. “It’s to slow them down as they come into the village.”
Pellegrini suggested they might be more effective in the village.
“We know from our former director that people tend to speed up between speed humps,” Pellegrini noted. “If we don’t put one in the village, guess where they’re going to speed up?”
But Mike Cole, manager of engineering at the Township of King, said the configuration of the road makes that difficult since putting speed humps on curvy roads is not recommended as it could be a hazard.
Councillor Linda Pabst added it’s difficult for drivers to speed on the curve.
“The straight-away, that’s where the most serious speeding is,” she concluded.

         

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