Remember obstacle courses? Roller-coasters? Dodging around big bumps, throwing your hands in the air and screaming as you went over a hill… well, city council wants to give that thrill back to Centretown residents. Enter traffic-calming measures — the city dweller’s fun park.
People who drive down Lyon Street already get to play this fun new game, but city council plans to put the speed humps and traffic medians in other parts of Centretown so everyone can participate.
Problem is, firefighters and ambulance workers don’t want to play. Like stuffy parents, they say this could be dangerous.
“You’ll poke your eye out,” or the traffic-calming equivalent. In this case, that equivalent is putting in speed humps and narrowing roads which means longer response times for emergency vehicles.
Boo, say city councillors. Speed humps and narrower intersections make people pay more attention on the roads and drive more slowly. People on residential streets like that a lot.
Sure, some people with back injuries might notice a little jarring impact and discomfort; it might be harder for snowplows to clear the roads in the winter and bikes might have a little less room. Traffic -calming measures are fun!
Well, say the stuffy firefighters, stuffy engineering studies show that speed humps and other traffic- calming measures slow down emergency vehicles by as much as one minute. If you’re having a heart attack, do you want paramedics coming going through an obstacle course on the way?
What about last year? A fire truck racing to an emergency hit one of those humps so hard a firefighter was thrown from his seat, hit his head on the roof, and was off work for three weeks.
Another fire truck had to plow down “traffic-calming” metal posts that were blocking access to a burning house on Cambridge Street. Where does the money come from to pay for that?
From the same place we’ll get the money for our new obstacle cour…er, traffic -calming measures. From the taxpayers.
So, say the firefighters, you want people to pay for something that we say will make response times worse?
Yes.
And that doesn’t really have any proven benefit?
Yes.
Hmm. Why not spend tax dollars on installing cameras at busy intersections to catch people running red lights, or improving road conditions, or on snow removal in the winter?
Well, say the councillors, we could do that, but people can’t see the red light cameras, road improvements annoy people, and snow removal is a boring topic. Traffic humps and medians are very visible. People will know we’re doing something. It is an election year.
Right.
—Melanie Brooks