Spaniard’s Bay council hits a bump on traffic calming effort

By Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Olivia Bradbury

The Town of Spaniard’s Bay is hoping to get feedback about potential traffic-calming measures from residents of Northern Cove Pond Road.

“This is our first road that the Town is trying to take some control back on traffic issues around town,” said Mayor Tammy Oliver.

She noted council had already put a traffic-calming policy in place and set up a monitoring system on Northern Cove Pond Road. Councillors and staff discussed feedback on the system, and are considering the addition of speed bumps or speed tables to further slow down speeds on the street.

Council sent letters to the 16 residences of Northern Cove Pond Road to get input on the idea. However, only seven households have written back thus far. Of those, three supported the implementation of speed bumps and tables, two opposed it, and two only want it as a last resort. Oliver said that’s not enough feedback for the Town to proceed.

“We don’t meet the criteria right now to move forward until we get more feedback from those residents,” said Oliver. “We do need the majority of responses either for or against to make that decision, and that is stated in the traffic-calming policy.”

According to the policy, if the Town doesn’t receive enough responses, the issue of traffic-calming on Northern Cove Pond Road will be tabled and revisited after two years.

As the procedure and policy are still new, Oliver suggested council wait until its next meeting to see if it gets any more feedback.

“We’ll give it another month, maybe touch base with residents on that road again. We can send them a Voyent alert saying that we need feedback to make a decision,” said the mayor.

The issue will be revisited at the next council meeting on September 8. If a majority of the road’s residents respond by then, council will decide whether or not to install speed bumps and tables.