{"id":24040,"date":"2019-06-20T18:35:58","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T22:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24040"},"modified":"2019-06-20T18:36:08","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T22:36:08","slug":"speed-limit-reduction-coming-to-john-west-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/speed-limit-reduction-coming-to-john-west-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Speed limit reduction coming to John West Way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\nBrock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A speed reduction will be coming soon to\nJohn West Way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council last week approved a motion from\nCouncillor Rachel Gilliland which will see speeds on the busy thoroughfare near\nTown Hall reduced by 10km\/hour to a speed limit of 40km an hour, aligned with\nother area residential streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional traffic calming measures will\nalso be investigated by municipal staff, including a possible three-way stop at\nAmberhill Way, just across the street from Town Hall and the Aurora Seniors\u2019\nCentre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen John West Way was built, there were\nno condos, parks, schools, or community events [in the area],\u201d said Councillor\nGillland, speaking to her motion. \u201cEven the\nAurora Seniors\u2019 Centre wasn\u2019t there. Over the years, there has been a\ntremendous increase in pedestrians, events and new builds. In addition, we have\nalso received notice of new rezoning of even more residential housing (a\nproposed apartment building) at the northeast corner of John West Way – even\nmore traffic and more pedestrians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Gilliland\ntold Council she has heard from \u201cmany residents\u201d regarding speeds and sightline\nissues in the area, complaints, she said, were corroborated by municipal staff\nwho have heard similar concerns, particularly when it comes to the safety of\nkids trying to cross the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe\nthis issue needs to have a two-prong approach solution, one to reduce speed to\n40 km an hour to meet all other residential streets and, two, to address the\nsight line issues,\u201d she said. \u201cLocal residents and visitors have shared their\nconcerns with sight line issues around the bend, not only by driving north and\nsouth but also exiting Town Hall, Amber Hill Way and the Tim Hortons plaza. It\nsimply is an accident waiting to happen. The safety in our neighbourhood is a\npriority and there is a high concentration of secondary school students walking\nor driving to schools, seniors and residents with accessibility requirements,\nresidents in general and tourists. The fact we have a sign posted saying\n\u2018Seniors\u2019 is an indication we need to be more aware. I say we can do better to\nkeep our community safe and I hope that I can have the support from Council to\nmove this motion forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council duly supported the\nmotion, but some were left to question why John West Way was an anomaly among\nlocal residential streets that have a 40 km\/hour speed limit instead of a 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy understanding is it was\nconsidered a thru-way at the time it was built and it wasn\u2019t considered a\nresidential street at the time,\u201d said Mayor Tom Mrakas, responding to questions\nfrom Councillor Michael Thompson. \u201cThe speed limit was never changed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I first saw the motion, I\nthought [of Mavrinac], Conover and certainly some of those major thoroughfares\non that part of Town,\u201d replied Councillor Thompson. \u201cThey are all 40 km\/hour,\nso I certainly support the motion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor John Gallo, who lives\nwith his family just a few steps from John West Way, was also supportive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing a resident of the area for 23 years, I couldn\u2019t agree more,\u201d he said. \u201cI am not sure what the solution is [on sight line issues] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we still need to put our heads together, but there are definitely sight line issues and speed issues up and down the street. I challenge any other street in the Town of Aurora that has that amount of density of residents in that strip from Wellington all the way up to [Hollidge Boulevard].\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A further report on potential traffic calming measures,\nincluding that potential three-way stop, is expected to be before Council in\nthe next few months.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir A speed reduction will be coming soon to John West Way. Council last week approved a motion from Councillor Rachel Gilliland which will see speeds on the busy thoroughfare near Town Hall reduced by 10km\/hour to a speed limit of 40km an hour, aligned with other area residential streets. Additional traffic calming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6fK","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 12:35:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}