Councillor seeks input ahead of Oct. 5 traffic review

It is no surprise that local and passthrough vehicle volumes are up and speeding, especially on our rural roads, is a constant hazard to the growing number of those who now use our roadways.
Safety on our rural and urban roads is consistently one of the top concerns Clearview Township council and staff are asked to address.
At the beginning of 2020, at the urging of residents, council directed staff to initiate a comprehensive traffic management study. Traffic volume and speed data was collected in the summer of 2020 in 48 sections of Clearview’s local roads. A traffic engineer was hired to analyze the data and prepare a report of the initial findings and recommendations. Council reviewed a draft of the short and long term recommendations in May 2021 and agreed in June to review speed management and other traffic calming improvements recommended by township staff.
That review is happening at a special meeting of council on Tuesday, Oct. 5. Public opinion is strong and persistent that something has to be done about safety on our roads but is mixed as to what is the best solution in the broader public interest. It’s important that your input inform any decisions made at that meeting and going forward.
So, it comes down to collecting and analyzing data and exercising good judgement. The data and observations reviewed to date suggest significant physical deficiencies exist including narrow road widths, narrow or non-existent shoulders, aging surface conditions and poor sight-lines over and around hills and curves. These all contribute to higher risk on our roads. Experts recognize the dangers that higher volumes and speeds on these roads impose on road users but differ on how to address the safety issues.
Clearview roads were designed as local roads for residents and farm equipment. While any solution has to balance safe multi-use and vehicle throughput, some solutions may attempt to manage our local roads as parallel routes to county arterial roads, such as Fairgrounds Road as an alternate to Airport Road. This is often justified by the practice of using existing measured speeds, often higher than the speed limit, to maintain current speed limits instead of setting new posted speeds based on the current design deficiencies and multi-uses on our existing roads. While an alternative solution could be to re-design and re-build our local roads to carry alternative arterial traffic, financial limitations alone make that impractical. Any differential in travel times at a lower posted speed is a reasonable compromise to ensure safe passage to the destination and safer multi-modal use of our local roads.
Lower posted speeds are also an effective way to divert GPS routed vehicles to roads designed to carrying higher volumes at higher speeds like Airport Road. This is particularly true for travellers and heavy truck traffic passing through on our local roads.
As a father, grandfather, resident and former engineer, I favour speed reductions where the hills, curves and current road conditions on our roads pose the greatest risks to user safety. As a councillor, I want to know what you think is the right thing to do.
Please take five minutes and share your experience or concerns on road safety, by sending an email to council@clearview.ca and a copy to the Office of the clerk at shelmkay@clearview no later than Oct. 4. Share your experience, express your concern, write your personal observations.

Thom Paterson is a member of Clearview Township council, representing Creemore and Avening.