While construction on Bay Drive is speeding to a completion, the new 20 km/h speed limit there is hitting the brakes a little too hard for one Chase councillor.
At the June 10 meeting, Coun. Colin Connett questioned the extremely low limit sign posted there, and the fact that it was implemented by the engineer.
“It’s stupid. It’s as plain as that, 20 km/h. Like I said before, you can’t even plow snow at 20 km/h, it won’t work," he said. "And from what I understand, only council can put up signs anyways.”
Public works manager Mike Baker explained that when the tender of the project was awarded, they had two different cost options. One was to widen the road on Bay Drive from its current width of five metres at that section – to have a double lane road they need it to be at least six metres wide.
“So to do that, we could have put in a few hundred thousand dollar retaining wall, or we could look at what the engineer had recommended, a speed reduction and a yield to oncoming traffic sign," he said. "So obviously that was a lot cheaper of a solution and it was done for financial reasons.”
Baker added that while it’s a little premature to "go in and pull anything out,” he will talk to the engineer and ask if that speed limit is actually necessary at the final inspection on Thursday, adding it could be overridden by council.
“Council can definitely set speed limits anywhere within the community as they so desire," he said. "But as the engineer of record, for safety reasons, the engineer can still make recommendations.”
