Calgary councillor wants legal options for local street racers

A Calgary councillor says he wants the city to explore whether there's a safe way to allow street racing to happen on closed roadways.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot says because there are no legal options for people to race or test the performance of their vehicles in Calgary, it's resulting in more dangerous situations on residential streets.

The notice of motion says some of the city's main drags for street racers are Rundlehorn Drive, Temple Drive, 52nd Street, 68th Street, 32nd Ave., 16th Ave., Memorial Drive and McKnight Blvd. 

"Right now a lot of those people that live in those communities are afraid to let their kids out of their front door for fear of what could happen to them because of all the speeding that's occurring in those communities," Chabot said. 

"Speaking to some of the young folks who tend to congregate in certain areas with these done-up vehicles, they have no venue."

Chabot says racers have had no outlet since the closure of Race City Speedway. 

He's drafted a notice of motion asking the city to examine if there is a safe and controlled way to give drivers that outlet on closed streets in industrial parks, potentially even charging drivers for the privilege.

"I can't see why we couldn't do this from a legislative perspective, but how do we do it so that it's safe, that it's monitored, it's patrolled — if you will — by the police, maybe even having fire there."

He says council still needs to explore the legal and insurance requirements, and needs to look at it from a liability perspective. 

"Essentially I'm looking for a scoping study to determine whether or not it's feasible to do something like that."

'Constant and exhausting' 

Amanda Smith-Meyerink, who lives in the northeast Calgary community of Redstone, says street racing in the residential community is "definitely out of control," especially in the summer.  

"It's a big problem with people racing up and down streets in Redstone, doing donuts in intersections, all that kind of stuff." 

Smith-Meyerink says she's worried about children in the area, and her own two kids. 

"It's constant and it's exhausting," she says.

She's happy the city is taking a step toward trying to limit the racing in the area, but says more needs to be done. She says she'd like to see more police presence in the area and for speed bumps to be added to the community. 

There may be another outlet for speed racers soon. 

A new $35-million race car track is under construction near Carstairs, Alta. located at the Carstairs overpass about 20 minutes north of Calgary. The track broke ground last September. It will be 3.5 kilometres and have 16 turns, including 38 metres of elevation change.

If Chabot's motion is cleared by a committee next week, it could be debated by council at its Dec. 20 meeting.