As I reached the bottom of the Belmont Arena stairs on Tuesday night, I could already hear the buzz of the voices at the top. The turnout for the Town Hall was excellent!
When councillors take office, we swear to serve the whole community to its best possible outcomes, not just our own wards. That can be difficult when we’re most intimately familiar with the wants, needs, and nuances of our home turf. Going out to town hall events in other wards has been a great experience for me – an opportunity to gain deeper insight into the concerns in the neighbourhoods farther afield than Union and Sparta. My thanks to the many people who took time out of their busy weeks to contribute to Councillor Baughman’s ward 5 event.
Once the questions began, it was clear that some concerns cross ward lines. Many of the questions were around traffic, and they were very relatable to my own neighbours in ward 2! As the PowerCo site demands increasing volumes of materials, Belmont is seeing a steady rise in truck traffic. Sunset Road residents are no strangers to arterial road traffic, with all the speeding and pedestrian concerns that come with. And Sparta is well-aware of the struggle to get enough OPP-monitoring of traffic in remote or low-population areas, with so few officers and so much ground to cover. Residents opened up about fears for their kids getting off the school bus, and told stories about recurring accidents by the post office.
So how do we slow things down? That’s a tough question. Port Stanley has improved traffic control with delineator posts. They’re inexpensive and quick to install. But Belmont and Sparta share the additional challenge of rural requirements: many of our farm implements can’t navigate narrowed roads or tight roundabouts successfully.
Deputy Mayor Todd Noble suggested an interesting new innovation he learned about at the Western Ontario Warden’s Caucus this month: traffic lights mounted with cameras that hold the light green for most vehicles, but change it to red to punish speeders. Although many listeners seemed interested in the idea, he regretted to inform us that they’re not yet approved for use in Ontario.
Still, the idea itself speaks to the fact that solutions to increasing traffic and the costs of policing are on minds not just in our own settlement areas, but in other municipalities and provinces, too. Although we don’t yet have perfect solutions for where residential and farm traffic meet, group solution seeking continues to drive us towards creative new approaches. There’s no single fix yet, but every conversation like Tuesday’s brings us a step closer to one.