slow down heading north

North End citizens fight city for more traffic calming measures

North End residents have no problem with the rest of the city traipsing through their neighbourhood to visit the waterfront.

They just want them to be polite about it.

That’s the gist of an expected nine-day Ontario Municipal Board Hearing that began Monday at the McMaster University’s Downtown Centre. The hearing will examine whether the municipality’s Setting Sail planning document, which will lower speed limits on many North End streets, does enough to keep the area’s roads safe enough.

The North End Neighbours, who have appealed the matter being heard before OMB chair Harold Goldkind, says it doesn’t. The group, through their lawyer Herman Turkstra, want speed limit reductions from 50 kilometres an hour to 30 km/h on Burlington Street East, Wellington Street, Ferguson Avenue, John Street and James Street, a redesignation of Bay Street North from collector to local road status and other traffic measures to safeguard the neighbourhood’s 1,200 children.

The neighbourhood is bounded by Wellington Street on the east, the CNR tracks on the south, and Burlington Bay on the west and north sides.

“When you hear councillors say they don’t want people from Ancaster who come down to get a suntan to get a parking ticket, the real issue is does the city really intend to ensure the traffic calming work in the North End and will it be safe for kids to cross the street or not,” Turkstra said.

“The view of the North End Neighbourhood Association is that the present plan does not do anything to address the core issue of child and family safety,” he said.

Turkstra plans to present evidence that what the North End wants is a trade off of 32 seconds, the difference it may take a waterfront bound visitor from travelling down a major collector at 30 km/h rather than the current 50 km/h.

“What the North End is saying is: ‘If you want to come from Ancaster and drive through the neighbourhood, that’s fine. Use James Street and drive slowly. That’s all. Come. We welcome you. We would prefer if you came on foot or by bike or by bus, but if you are going to come by car the speed limit is 30 (km/h), be careful.

“It’s like coming into someone’s house and saying, ‘Do you want me to take my shoes off?’ When you’re a guest in somebody’s house, you’re kind to them,” he said.

But Brian Duxbury, representing the city, told Goldkind that there is a narrow set of issues that are in conflict between the two parties.

Duxbury said a number of traffic calming measures have been approved by city council as part of a traffic management plan included in the Setting Sail policy plan.

“It’s the city’s position that the plan contains a robust and aggressive bundle of traffic calming measures for the North End Neighbours,” Duxbury said. “The city’s position is that no further revisions are needed to Setting Sail.”

The hearing is set to continue Tuesday.