A city committee has approved $120,000 worth of traffic calming measures in ward 8.
The Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Standing Committee met Wednesday with one report looking for approval of traffic calming measures on South National Street between Pillette Road and Jefferson Boulevard.
The street, which is considered a collector road, currently has a multi-use path on the north side of the road. While part of the path has raised curbs, primarily near Jefferson and Pillette, the remainder of the path only has a rumble strip between drivers and those using the path
The main concern on the road is that drivers are going onto the path to get around vehicles who are turning onto side streets.
The report was looking for committee approval to install raised curbs on the entire street, as well as adding 110 bollards between the road and the multi-use path to prevent vehicles from going onto the path.
Gary Kaschak, the ward 8 councillor and committee member, says there were traffic concerns on this road.
"Real good endeavour here that we're going to go with more traffic calming there. We actually had people that we're driving, and if someone in front of them was making a left hand turn, that they would go right around and drive onto the walking and bicycle trail. So that's going to preclude them from doing that here moving forward."
He thinks people will be happy with the proposed improvements.
"They wanted to cycle and wanted to walk there, but they saw the way some of the cars were behaving and some of the speeds they were going, and how they were going around people. So, this is going to go over well in my ward with a lot of people that do want to get out and walk, we're starting to see it with this good weather, and ride bicycles, and I think once they see this in place we're going to see an explosion of people active in that area."
He adds that a pedestrian crossover was discussed, but not recommended by administration.
"After it was explained by administration, we went over a couple of things, that was going to be at Balfour Street and South National, and it's not a high walkability area, it's not a high traffic area."
Currently, the road has temporary traffic calming measures, including two radar speed signs and three flex posts. This year the city will up the flex posts to five total, and the two radar speed sign will remain as the permanent measures are added.
Kaschak says if this report is given final approval from city council that he's hoping to see a portion of that work completed later this year, with full completion by early 2026.
50 per cent of the total cost will be funded through the Road Safety Counter Measures Reserve and the other 50 per cent will be funded from the Bikeway Development Reserve.