Orleans Weekly Journal
Published: Friday, August 22, 2008

40 should be the new 50 

A few years back, some folk were promoting a bylaw to make every residential street in Ottawa a 40 km/hr zone.  At the time I thought the idea was an over-reaction to a few stupid drivers.

Not anymore. I’ve done a full 180 on this idea. Bring on the slow driving movement, and pardon the pun, but let’s speed it up.  I live on a great street with outstanding neighbours and we can be seen on many a weekend or weeknight just shootin’ the breeze in someone’s driveway, front lawn or out on the back deck. Meanwhile, the kids are close by doing their thing and it’s not long before someone’s engine is humming just a little too loud signifying a speed that is obscene.

And it’s not just teenagers or yuppie drivers. It’s that suburban mommy in the red minivan and that middle-aged dad in the dark brown SUV around the corner.

Recently my neighbours and I worked with Orléans Coun. Bob Monette and his office to get 40 km/hr signs installed on our very long crescent in Fallingbrook-Pineridge. After a few weeks of monitoring and observation by police and city officials (I assume), upon my return from vacation, voila, the signs were posted.

Now we have reason to yell at the speedsters, and starting ASAP, zing tennis balls at them if they fail to adhere to the posted, visibly and repeatedly, limits. Better my ball of warning than some poor child’s crushed skull.

Our community is home to tens of thousands of families with children of all ages riding their bikes, scooters, skateboards, playing hockey or just hacking around. As well, many parents use our side streets to wheel their newborns around in strollers and it seems that every second house has someone out twice daily walking the dog.

With due respect to great police officers, nabbing folks doing 126 km/hr down the 174 before Tenth Line and nailing folks doing 90km/hr on St. Joseph as they zoom toward the parkway is fine, but let’s nail the clowns doing 90 down local crescents, drives and ways instead.

Indeed, some of these folks likely get their ticket, then zoom onto local streets and do 70 km/hr or 80 km/hr on local roads. Roads, like your street and mine, especially in the summer time, populated with kids, kids and more kids.

The present rule in most Ontario cities is 50 km/hr unless otherwise signed. It’s time to change this to 40 km/hr for all residential streets, at least in our city. Then for arterial and service roads, we can up the range to 50 km/hr to 80 km/hr.

And we should all be mindful of this 40 km/hr rule, especially when on somebody else’s street. Think about it: does zooming at twice this limit for 10, 20 or 30 seconds really get you to the drive thru, work, or home faster? Let’s make 40 km/hr the law for our residential streets.