{"id":29261,"date":"2021-05-06T23:54:27","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T03:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=29261"},"modified":"2021-05-06T23:54:31","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T03:54:31","slug":"speed-humps-coming-to-portion-of-centre-street-to-discourage-wrong-way-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/speed-humps-coming-to-portion-of-centre-street-to-discourage-wrong-way-drivers\/","title":{"rendered":"Speed humps coming to portion of Centre Street to discourage wrong-way drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Speed humps will be coming to Centre Street between Spruce and Wells Streets, pending approval from Central York Fire Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council approved the latest traffic calming measures for Centre Street last week, part of a bid to discourage drivers from ignoring the one-way traffic controls on the western part of the street designed to prevent the residential thoroughfare from being used as a traffic bypass of Yonge and Wellington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A solution to prevent drivers from ignoring the one-way direction has been the subject of debate for over two years, and despite significant time spent on the subject in recent months, the approval of speed humps did not come without question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Rachel Gilliland, for instance, said she was not convinced the speed humps would have the desired effect and cited feedback from neighbours \u2013 or lack thereof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Waters, Planner for the Town of Aurora, said municipal employees hand-delivered surveys to 97 homes not only on Centre Street, but also Wellington, Spruce, Walton Drive and Catherine Avenue asking if there were \u201coperational issues\u201d with the one-way section of Centre and whether traffic calming measures were needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

38 surveys received a response and the results found that \u201cresidents do have issues with the one-way operation of Centre Street in terms of the impacts with drivers going the wrong way,\u201d said Mr. Waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf the 38 surveys that were delivered to the residences, we received nine responses, about a 24 per cent response rate, and the split between speed cushions \u2013 yes and no \u2013 was about five for and four against,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s little over 50 per cent in terms of those residents who felt speed cushions would solve the operational issues with people going the wrong way on Centre Street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With 35 per cent of the residents saying it would solve a problem, Councillor Gilliland said it could mean 65 per cent of residents said it would not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs this actually going to solve the problem of people going the wrong way down the street on a one-way street?\u201d she questioned. \u201cI look at my assessment and say no, we\u2019re just going to say it is okay to drive down this one-way street slower. I am not convinced we\u2019re going to solve this problem. I think they\u2019re going to come back and say it is still happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just feel we\u2019re putting a band-aid on something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The potential of more traffic calming measures on Centre was most recently brought forward by Councillor Sandra Humfryes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She expressed frustration that the need for something more was still being debated after two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a real reason for this, and it is to deter people from making a left turn at Centre Street versus Wellington,\u201d she said. \u201cThe whole thing is to deter people from going through there instead of going to Yonge and Wellington. Everyone wants to avoid Yonge and Wellington and that was a shortcut and it really caused havoc. For me, this is a very unique area. You could say, \u2018no, it\u2019s not worth it,\u2019 and leave it alone. It\u2019s up to you, but I come here pleading with you guys because we have tried everything: we\u2019ve tried police, we\u2019ve had signage\u2026 it\u2019s human nature to try and take a short cut, so what you want to do is try and deter them by making it harder for them to go fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about four driveways and eight houses. They\u2019re the ones that are going to get injured. If you don\u2019t want to believe the neighbours, then don\u2019t. I am really disappointed. If we\u2019re going to go back to a two-way street, it will be a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Wendy Gaertner was of the mind there are \u201cno good solutions to this problem\u201d as it is an \u201canomaly\u201d but the Town has to do \u201cthe best that we can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a safety issue for our residents and we should try to do the best for them,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Councillor Michael Thompson\u2019s point of view, none of the myriad traffic calming measures have solved the problems \u2013 and not just on Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe still see speeding on Kennedy, Mavrinac, Conover, but it helps to mitigate the issue,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking for the perfect response to it and I don\u2019t know if there is a perfect solution, but at least this proposal\u2026will help mitigate it a little bit and will help lessen the severity of it and improve the safety of the area. You will still have people who do that, but I would rather do something than nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor John Gallo offered a similar view, stating there \u201cis a definite need to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t think that is going to deter them from doing this,\u201d he said. \u201cThey already know they\u2019re breaking the law. Getting a little bump while breaking the law is not going to stop them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, for Mayor Tom Mrakas, there were few alternatives on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a certain amount of options available to you \u2013 one is remove the one way which the residents in the area don\u2019t want. The other is putting up a block wall so you don\u2019t allow anyone to leave the area. That is not going to happen,\u201d he said. \u201cThe other one is full on enforcement and that can\u2019t happen. YRP (York Regional Police) can\u2019t be there all the time. It is just not going to happen. They can show up there every once in a while, and not to minimize what is going on here, but YRP has bigger issues to deal with than to sit and catch people who are going the wrong way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Speed humps will be coming to Centre Street between Spruce and Wells Streets, pending approval from Central York Fire Services. Council approved the latest traffic calming measures for Centre Street last week, part of a bid to discourage drivers from ignoring the one-way traffic controls on the western part of the street designed to prevent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29261","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\/p3D2k4-7BX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 15:05:02","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\/29261","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=29261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}