The Municipality of Kincardine will be undertaking a traffic study for Highway 21 in the area of Kincardine Township-Tiverton Public School.
In a report presented to the council by the Director of Infrastructure & Development Adam Weishar shared with council that after a brief discussion in January of this year, the municipality did put a request in with the MTO for a traffic study, but didn’t receive a response until June.
The province did do an assessment of the road while school was still in session, where a trailer camera was out for a two-week period.
They also assessed the road layout, the lane configuration, the existing signage, the paint markings, and the collision history of the road.
Weishar says that after the MTO study, the province did request additional patrol from the OPP, along with some options.
“One is to apply for a community safety zone in that area, and they did state within that correspondence that they would support it,” he explained to council, adding “We have, in my time here, gone through that process in Tiverton, and it is a cumbersome application to put together.”
He says that now municipal staff wants to conduct their own traffic study, to find out if perhaps a turning lane to turn left by the school would also reduce issues.
“Based on sheer volume, in terms of the amount of vehicles that are heading northbound trying to turn into the school, that would reduce the problem in general.”
Weishar also says that completing an independent traffic study would strengthen a community safety zone application with the MTO.
In the staff report, Weishar added that a letter be sent to the local MPP to get speed limits reduced, particularly on Highway 21 from just south of Bruce Avenue through to the North Line Extension to help mitigate the issue before further community growth takes place.
“From a personal perspective and a staffing-level perspective, I can’t understand why they want to have vehicles ramp up and down from stop light to stop light at 80 kilometres an hour.”