Traffic calming measures are being recommended for a section of Kildare Road in Windsor.
A report going to the City of Windsor's Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Standing Committee makes several recommendations for an area of Kildare Road between Ottawa Street and Tecumseh Road East.
The proposed traffic calming measures include additional stop signs, reducing the number of lanes to two from the current four lanes, and speed limits being dropped to 30 km/h and 40 km/h in some sections, down from the posted 50 km/h.
Chris Holt, Ward 4 Windsor City Councillor and committee chair, says the infrastructure around the area was meant to handle three shifts of thousands of people coming in and out of the former GM Transmission Plant, which closed in 2010.
He says that's not happening anymore and what's left is a road that's larger than it needs to be, cars tend to go a lot faster than the speed limit, with a large volume of cut through traffic trying to avoid other areas.
"Some of our heaviest arterials are only two lanes, it doesn't need four lanes of roads there," says Holt. "So what the proposal is, is to knock it down to two lanes, which can easily handle the neighbourhood traffic in that's in area and utilize the extra lane to put protected bike lanes in there."
Information gathered during a traffic study looking at that particular section of Kildare Road found that 66 per cent of vehicles using the corridor are considered cut-through traffic.
When it came to vehicle speeds, 85 per cent of vehicles were travelling 9.5 km/h above the current speed limit.
The study also found daily traffic volumes vary from 3,600 to 6,700 vehicles per day along the corridor. The normal target for a local residential street is 1,000 vehicles per day.
The plan also calls for the addition of protected bike lanes, the first protected bike lanes in Windsor.
Holt hopes people will spend a lot less time speeding down that road after the changes have happened and and make it a neighbourhood again, not a race way for residents.
"I've been discussing this with the residents since I got on council back in 2014. It's highly anticipated, the residents are fully behind doing something on that road and I'm looking forward to hearing their feedback," he says.
The Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Standing Committee meets at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.