The Town of Halton Hills is proposing several measures to curb speeding in the McKenzie-Smith Bennett School area.
Complaints from local residents have pushed the Town to consider traffic calming measures on the surrounding Acton roads. These could be anything from different types of speed humps to signage.
One noteworthy measure being considered would be a first for Halton Hills - a raised crosswalk, which acts like a speed hump, making crossing a road safer for pedestrians, in this case parents and students. It would be located on Acton Boulevard north of Mill Street East.
No less attention is being paid to other roads in the neighbourhood. Town staff are looking at Churchill Road North, and Peel, Arthur and Mill streets west of Acton Boulevard as candidates for speed humps, with an additional one on Peel east of Acton Boulevard.
Mill, Arthur and Peel directly feed into the school zone for both car and foot traffic, requiring staff to add these streets to their study. Those roads were recently converted to having a speed limit of 40 km/h.
But the Town’s own collected data shows drivers are still going well over the limit. Both Peel and Arthur streets have a peak speed of 47 km/h. In that part of the study area, drivers drove the fastest on Mill, an average of 51 km/h. Churchill Road North – which also has a posted speed limit of 40 km/h – has the fastest traffic at 57 km/h.
“Everybody’s rushed. We’ve seen this influx of operating speeds going up. We haven’t addressed these kinds of issues because in the past it was sufficient to do some kind of non-intrusive messaging like a radar message board to grab people’s attention,” said Town traffic analyst Roumen Kotev.
He added that “as of late, it has proven less and less effective to have these kinds of non-intrusive measures.”
“There are kids walking to school,” Kotev added in emphasizing who is impacted.
Kotev and colleague Sebastian Biernat are accepting public feedback on the measures on the Let’s Talk Halton Hills website until Dec. 20. No concrete date has been established on when a final report with public comments will come before council, but Kotev expects it will be sometime in the first quarter of 2025.
Meanwhile, Halton District School Board Superintendent Tara Connor welcomed “the consideration of increased traffic calming measures near the school.”
“The safety of our students and staff is our highest priority and the HDSB works closely with the Town of Halton Hills, and all our municipal partners, to support the safety of students, families and staff when travelling to and from school,” Connor said.
