{"id":26118,"date":"2020-03-06T18:06:44","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T23:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26118"},"modified":"2020-03-12T19:41:09","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T23:41:09","slug":"council-looks-at-john-west-way-traffic-calming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/council-looks-at-john-west-way-traffic-calming\/","title":{"rendered":"Council looks at John West Way traffic calming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Council is looking\nat further ways to \u201ccalm\u201d traffic on John West Way after giving the green light\nto a new four-way stop on the busy residential street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, local lawmakers\ngave formal approval to a new all-way stop on John West Way at Amberhill Way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intersection in\nquestion services both a dense residential townhouse development as well as the\ndriveway and parking lot shared by Town Hall and the Aurora Seniors\u2019 Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The change in\ntraffic pattern came following a motion from Councillor Rachel Gilliland and a\ndelegation to Council from members of the Aurora Seniors\u2019 Association (ASA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ASA said they\nwere concerned about the safety of members, many of whom were forced to park on\nthe west side of John West Way, having to get out of their vehicles into\ntraffic, because they simply couldn\u2019t find a spot in the packed parking lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Council said\nmoving forward with the all-way stop was a step in the right direction, some\nmembers said it was merely a band-aid solution that didn\u2019t solve a larger\nissue, including Councillor John Gallo who said some \u201castute residents\u201d shared\ntheir worries in correspondence about the negative impacts of four-way stops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI continue to\nbelieve that this is not really going to be solving our problem,\u201d said\nCouncillor Gallo, stating the real problem was creating more parking for\nSeniors\u2019 Centre members in the shared lot. \u201cWe have proclaimed that there is a\nclimate emergency and the resident that emailed us was very astute in advising\nus that stop signs, particularly four-way stop signs, are not exactly the best\nway to go if we\u2019re really looking at the environment because they produce far\nmore CO2 when you\u2019re stopping, idling\u2026and taking off. Based on this report,\nsome 800 cars every day will now be stopping just down the street from here and\nI continue to believe we have not really solved the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am clearly in\nfavour of safety and I would not want any accidents to happen and clearly, for\nme, the problem is the cars parking on the street, not necessarily the cars\ndriving up and down the street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Wendy\nGaertner shared these concerns, building on Councillor John Gallo\u2019s suggestion\nthat a better solution might be in allocating parking around nearby Queen\u2019s\nDiamond Jubilee Park for municipal staff, thus freeing up space for seniors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we should\ntry that before we put in any stop signs,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the end of the day,\nthe real solution is to encourage our staff and some seniors to be walking and\ncycling and carpooling, or taking public transit. I think it is something we,\nas a corporation, should try and figure out how to encourage staff to do that.\nI think we\u2019ll have to leave it up to the seniors\u2019 but I have seen some of them\nwalk on the track and they are pretty good walkers. We have to think, in the\nlong term, what we\u2019re really trying to accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Harold Kim\nsaid he shared some of the environmental concerns voiced around the table, but,\nin the end, said that safety is \u201cparamount\u201d and parking around Queen\u2019s Diamond\nJubilee Park might not be sufficient to make a \u201cdent\u201d in the problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to do\naway with cars,\u201d he said. \u201cFinding more parking\u2026eventually people will catch up\nto that capacity and exacerbate that. That threshold will eventually be\nreached, so we\u2019re going to have to put a cap on parking to some degree. If we\nwant a totally environmental solution, we\u2019d have seniors ride their bikes or\nrun, and we know that is not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, those\nvoting in favour of the all-way stop contended that Council was looking at two\nindependent issues. The problem of parking at Town Hall would still need to be\naddressed, but an all-way stop is a step towards traffic calming, a benefit\nthey said would be enjoyed by residents beyond the Seniors\u2019 Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a completely\nseparate problem,\u201d said Councillor Gilliland. \u201cIt is not specifically about the\nseniors. Addressing the climate, one could argue cars these days are designed\nto turn off when they stop. Cars are waiting an extra long time when they\u2019re\ntrying to make that very unsafe turn. It is a very unsafe entrance and exit,\nregardless of whether there is a parked car on that road or not. I do truly\nbelieve this is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Sandra\nHumfryes also supported the motion, suggesting a solution to the parking\nproblem might be \u201crelocating\u201d Petch House and creating more parking behind the\nSeniors\u2019 Centre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven if we had\nenough parking for the Seniors Centre and it wasn\u2019t an issue, I would still be\nin favour of putting an all-way stop in this section here,\u201d concluded Mayor Tom\nMrakas. \u201cI would be in favour of adding another one over by Evelyn Buck Lane. I\nthink is needed and it is not for this specific issue, directly effecting the\nSeniors\u2019 Centre. It is about the traffic coming down on John West Way. I have\nheard from many residents that people use it as a thru-way and we need to\ndiscourage that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Council\u2019s\napproval, staff will continue to monitor traffic operations on John West Way as\na result of the approved speed limit reduction while also taking a closer look\nat parking and sight lines on the street near Town Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other nearby problem areas identified by Council include, as suggested last month by Councillor Gaertner, a four-way stop on Hollidge Boulevard at McMaster Avenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Council is looking at further ways to \u201ccalm\u201d traffic on John West Way after giving the green light to a new four-way stop on the busy residential street. Last week, local lawmakers gave formal approval to a new all-way stop on John West Way at Amberhill Way. The intersection in question services both a dense […]<\/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-26118","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\/p3D2k4-6Ng","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 14:19:24","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\/26118","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=26118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}