Kitchener considers traffic calming measures on 3 more streets

Traffic calming measures are being planned for three more streets in Kitchener.

A staff report set to go before Kitchener's community and infrastructure services committee on Monday lists the three streets as:

• East Avenue, from Weber Street to Krug Street.
• Pioneer Tower Road, from Baxter Place to Pioneer Ridge Drive.
• Biehn Drive, from Old Huron Place to Caryndale Drive.

The city keeps a list of roads where traffic calming is "warranted" based on requests from council or residents. 

These three streets rank fourth, sixth and eighth respectively.

"Speeding is one of the top concerns we hear about from our residents, especially speeding on local neighbourhood streets," said Aaron McCrimmon-Jones, the manager of transportation planning for the city. 

Once councillors approve the three streets for reviews, McCrimmon-Jones says they'll begin setting up meetings with local residents to talk about what they'd like to see.

Calming measures can include things like raised crosswalks or speed cushions, which are similar to speed humps. In the past, the city has also used murals on the road to slow vehicles.

"We do have to follow certain design standards that we find in different engineering documents that we apply, and we also have to work with our operations staff and other city services such as garbage collection, Grand River Transit, to make sure that we're not impacting their services. Emergency services is another key service that we work with," he said.

"We take all this into consideration along with resident feedback to come up with a plan that works for everybody."

Those reviews take about 12 to 18 months, with the goal of starting work in the spring or summer of 2021.

This year, work is expected to begin on Deer Ridge Driver, Robert Ferrie Drive (between South Creek Drive and Doon South Drive) and Holborn Drive, pending council's approval next month.

Other streets city knows are in need

There are currently 29 roads on the warranted traffic calming priority list.

Number one is Lennox Lewis Way. City staff say in the report it's not being considered for traffic calming right now because it's "predominantly industrial in nature." There is a high school, community centre and sports fields in the area, but there's a lack of residential. The road was also added late in 2019, so staff will take more time to gather traffic data.

Stirling Avenue S. between Homer Watson Boulevard and Highland Road West is ranked second, but it was just reconstructed in 2019 and the data used to calculate the need for traffic calming was done prior to that.

Staff say they'll collect new data to re-evaluate this area.

Third on the list is Doon Valley Drive.

There's currently a Lower Doon and Conestoga College Node Study underway, and staff say they'll wait for the results of the study before moving ahead.

Seasonal calming measures

The staff report also says the seasonal traffic calming program will see changes this year.

That includes growing the number of speed radar display boards from seven to 10. The signs can be moved around to tell drivers how fast they're going. With 10 signs, it means there would be one for each ward of the city.

As well, the staff would like to increase the number of flexible delineators, the reflective signs that go up in the middle of a street, to have 10 for each ward plus and extra 10 to be used in areas "most in need."