A number of road safety changes are being made to the east-west stretch of Municipal Road 80 from Val Therese to midway through Hanmer, including reduced speed limits.
They’re long-sought actions, said Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent, who serves the area.
During both last week’s operations committee meeting of city council and conversation with Sudbury.com this week, Parent sought to mitigate public backlash with context.
Not everyone will be happy with the city lowering speed limits, he said.
“The catalyst to this was a petition,” he said of changes made to MR 80. “The community asked for this study, the city didn’t just do it on their own.”
Parent joined fellow area city council member René Lapierre (Ward 6) in spending an hour with city staff prior to last week’s meeting to make sure they knew exactly why staff were proposing what they put forward.
“The data shows there’s an issue,” Parent said, adding that although some people will be frustrated with the changes, they’re being made for public safety.
From Frost Street (eastern edge of Val Therese) east to Gatien Avenue (Hanmer), the speed limit is being reduced from 80 km/h to 70 km/h.
From Gatien Avenue east to 60 metres west of Glenn Street, the speed limit is being reduced from 70 km/h to 60 km/h.
In Val Therese, where MR 80 turns from north-south to east-west at Desmarais Road, the city has been instructed to improve a pedestrian crossover. Staff have also been instructed to add necessary signs, pavement markings, pedestrian crossings, stop bars and stop signs.
The area’s ranking when it comes to automated speed-enforcement cameras will be reviewed, and Greater Sudbury Police Service members will be asked to increase their own speed enforcement efforts along the corridor.
Work will also be done to consolidate the number of driveways to retail developments located along MR 80 between the Philippe Street and Deschene Road/Elmview Drive intersections (Hanmer Valley Shopping Centre).
Across the affected area of MR 80, the city recorded 106 collisions from 2015-23, including 84 at intersections and 22 at mid-block segments. The most collision-prone intersection was at Deschene Road/Elmview Drive and MR 80, where 32 incidents occurred.
“One of the main themes that was found in reviewing the collision history was that excessive speed was either a direct cause or an auxiliary cause of many of the collisions,” city Traffic and Transportation manager David Knutson said.
Knutson’s report shows 85th percentile speeds (the speed at or below which 85 percent of the drivers travel) recorded in January ranging from 5 km/h and 14 km/h above the posted speed limits, with maximum speeds in some locations of 46 km/h above the posted limit.
The city’s review of speed limits along MR 80, using Transportation Association of Canada speed limit guidelines, determined that the proposed reductions were warranted.
Per Parent’s concerns regarding public blowback, after city council members voted in 2017 to lower the speed limit along MR 80 from Yorkshire Drive to Dominion Drive to 70 km/h from 80 km/h, Lapierre notched the only “no” vote due to public concerns about travel times. Within weeks of the change, several speed limit signs were vandalized to read “80 km/h” rather than the newly instated 70 km/h.
Automated speed-enforcement cameras have also been frequent victims of vandalization since they were first put into place last year.
The changes to MR 80 were first advocated for by members of the public in 2019, and a required traffic study was delayed due to the Maley Drive bypass project affecting traffic flow and then the COVID–19 pandemic.
A unanimous operations committee of city council approved the changes during last week’s meeting, and their decision was anticipated to be ratified by city council as a whole on Tuesday night.
Tyler Clarke covers city and political affairs for Sudbury.com.