Solving Residential Area Speeding Problems

Let me state that what I am outlining is not a criticism of the Police in my area, or any other area that they are responsible for enforcement. However, it is their job, which they have accepted and there is an expectation of their participation in addressing these issues.

I pay 1200.00 dollars a year as a portion of property taxes allegedly for Policing costs. I have severe concerns whether the funds are indeed used for the specific use as claimed by the city, but that is another issue.

The only reason I mention it is the PD claims they are severely underfunded and are unable to deal with traffic issues in my area. The city claims there are no funding issues or shortfalls and around and around the story goes for the last 6 years.

My point is, as with many government issues, there always seems to be many different layers of process, meetings and beaucratic tap dancing which result in the actual problems never being resolved or adequately addressed.

It is fairly clear that wherever you have speeding problems, there is no Pro-active traffic law enforcement to tame a particular City or neighborhood, if there was, there wouldn't be problems.

Many years ago, any Police force was comprised of a traffic section, which purpose was to control the general population and enforce written laws, those traffic sections have long since been dissolved, and members are used else where in the Police force.

In Kelowna B.C. there is a real serious issue with high speed drivers everywhere. While most people are not concerned about speeding on main roadways and highways, they are seriously concerned about their neighborhood side streets, and in particular, the street that takes them home.

The many years without traffic law enforcement has led to this situation, who do we blame for this?

Is the Mayor to blame, the City Hall, the Police force, the drivers? The Police are in charge of law enforcement, and are a paid service by the taxpayers, but very little of those tax dollars get used for traffic cops, so they are to blame for not providing adequet traffic law enforcement. But who is in charge of the Police force, that determines whether a specific City or area needs enforcement?

In our neighborhood, we have some real serious issues with speeders, as well as a big majority of drivers do not stop at Stop signs, this creates a safety issue for residents backing out of driveways, and an overall feeling that our neighborhood street has become a free for all racetrack.

It doesn't matter where you live, the solutions are all the same: Speed humps, the first thing mentioned. Speed humps work for some people and they don't for others, here in Kelowna they have been proven ineffective and annoying.

The real solution is a crackdown on speeding, which requires a full blown traffic section, but this is never an option for concerned residents. We get told that there isn't money for more traffic members. Common sense will tell you that ticket revenue will be much more than the cost of the officers, so it's a win win situation for the Police force and the residents who are at wits end with the stupidity.

Chestnut Street is a connector between locations in west Parksville and facilities along west Despard Avenue or destinations south via the Alberni Highway.  No information was provided regarding the times of the day and days of the week that problematic speeding occurs along Chestnut Street.  This analysis assumes that the worst speeding on Chestnut Avenue is southbound.

Some information can be obtained from aerial photographs.

• Tire markings on the pavement at the intersection of Chestnut Street and Hirst Avenue indicate that the dominant movement of vehicles between the two roadways is to or from west Hirst Avenue.
• Tire markings on the pavement of Despard Avenue at its intersection with Chestnut Street – particularly erosion of the eastbound solid lane edge line – suggest that many vehicles do not come to a full stop before turning from Chestnut to Despard.
• Google Maps shows two paths from the west end of Hirst Avenue to south of the Despard Avenue intersection on the Alberni Highway.  Although Google Maps shows the Moillet Street route to be the preferred choice – due to it being slightly shorter, drivers travelling between west Hirst Avenue and south on the Alberni Highway would likely choose the Chestnut route because it has fewer mandatory and potential stops and thus lower driver workload and shorter net travelling time.

Several groups of drivers are likely to travel between west Hirst Avenue and west Despard Avenue facilities.  These include:

• Persons going to and from the off-leash dog park at random times of the day and days of the week
• Staff going to the Springwood Elementary School – before 9 a.m. on school days
• Parents driving students to Springwood Elementary School – before 9 a.m. on school days
• Staff going to and from the Trillium Lodge or Oceanside Health Centre – before 9 a.m. on work days and at shift change times
• Visitors, patients and service people going to and from Trillium and Oceanside at various times of the days and days of the week.

It does not seem characteristic of members of these groups to be chronic speeders. 

To the extent that people are consistent in their behaviour, it seems likely that drivers speeding on Chestnut Street will also fail to stop completely before proceeding onto Despard Avenue and will also speed along Despard Avenue.  Two strategies arise from this assumption:

1. The first is to reduce undesirable driver behaviours by enforcing compliance with the Chestnut Street stop sign at Despard Avenue and by enforcing compliance with the speed limit on Despard Avenue.  (It is assumed that apprehending drivers on Despard Avenue is preferable to stopping them on Chestnut Street.)
2. The second is to reduce the benefits of the Chestnut/Despard path to the Alberni Highway by making it less attractive than the Moillet/Despard path or the Moillet/Bernard path.  (This assumes that diverting traffic from Chestnut to Moillet is acceptable.)  The first part of this strategy is to enforce Chestnut/Despard compliance as described above.  The second part is to convert the two-way through/two-way stop control at Moillet Street and Despard Avenue to a four-way stop.  If the use of Bernard Avenue to access the Alberni Highway southbound is unfavourable long term, changing Moillet/Despard from a four-way stop to two-way through on Moillet could occur at an appropriate time.

One of the things we found out working traffic complaints for speed in residential neighborhoods is that the majority of violators that we cited, were homeowners in the area.  They were the most vocal about the speeding problem.  Also seemed to work the same for stop sign violators as well.

Ray