WELLINGTON COUNTY – As the county continues to work on its rollout of automated speed enforcement, the areas around eight schools are being added to the list of locations designated as “community safety zones.”
The change will allow automated speed enforcement to be used at a total of 14 schools, “protecting these children, the families and the teachers,” councillor Gregg Davidson told county council on Sept. 26.
Davidson, chair of the county’s roads committee, was reporting to council on what came out of the committee’s Sept. 10 meeting.
He explained that in 2022, six school zones had been specified in a bylaw identifying community safety zones (CSZ), and that bylaw is now being updated to include eight more school zones.
The “overall objective is to ensure that all the sites look the same by providing consistency for both drivers and vulnerable users by incorporating the remaining eight SZ locations into the County’s CSZ bylaw,” stated a county staff report recommending the change.
The original six CSZs were identified as part of the 2022 Road Master Action Plan, which assessed road segments for a variety of risk factors, including posted speed limit, number of lanes, traffic volume, truck volumes, presence of community facilities, presence of sidewalks, pedestrian crossing and number of intersections and entrances.
The six schools zones that got CSZ designations were surrounding Wellington Heights Secondary School (Mount Forest), and Drayton Heights, J.D. Hogarth (Fergus), Elora, Ross R. Mackay (Hillsburgh) and Aberfoyle public schools.
The schools being added to the list include Ponsonby, Maryborough (Moorefield)and Brisbane public schools, as well as Mennonite schools on Wellington Roads 8, 16 and 86, Maranatha Christian School (Centre Wellington), and Sacred Heart Catholic school in Rockwood.
According to the staff report, the CSZ designation allows more flexibility in determining the boundaries of the zone than a “school zone” designation.
Also, the signage that goes with a CSZ designation includes the warning of “fines increased” that is not a requirement in a school zone.
“This provides the public notice to traffic infraction expectations,” the report said.
Davidson told council “there is still much discussion that needs to take place between now and the target launch of Jan. 1 of the automated speed enforcement program.
Among the next steps, he said the installation of mandatory “municipal speed camera coming soon” signs is expected to take place in October.
