The issue along Dawson Road isn’t about how fast trucks are going but the attitude of the drivers.
That’s the message Vince Rutter presented at city council on Monday. Council in February unanimously passed MacIntyre Coun. Trevor Giertuga’s resolution calling for a length restriction on vehicles traveling on the municipal portion of the Dawson Road, which truckers have used for years to cut time off their travels through the city.
But Rutter said he’s not satisfied with speed restrictions.
“We feel implementing a community safety zone and restricting speed on the city controlled stretch will have no effect at diverting heavy truck traffic,” Rutter said. “This strategy has been tried before with no success. This is a band aid solution that isn’t going to work in the long term. The problem isn’t speed on this road. The issue is the behavior of the truck drivers. ”
He said there’s a few reasons why this strategy didn’t work. One of the reasons was that motorists were ticketed far more often than truck drivers. He said it’s probably because it’s difficult to pull over the large trucks.
If the community safety zone does divert truck traffic, Rutter said eventually motorist will become frustrated with the restricted speed limit and start to complain to raise the speed limit. Once that happens the trucks will come back and the city will come full circle, he said.
“We’re offering to lobbying harder to the provincial government to get this diversion plan to work,” he said.
Terry Berube, who presented next to Rutter, said he remembers a collision when he was working as a safety investigator where a transport truck struck a bucket truck from behind along Dawson Road. He said it was a perfect example of why legislation doesn’t always make people safe.
He said this is a big reason why they want to get those trucks out of residential areas.
Giertuga expressed his frustration with how council was dealing with the situation. He said he wasn’t happy that he wasn’t informed about a meeting that discussed this topic.
“We’re discussing something on the behalf of 2,000 residents a lot of which are in my ward and a motion that I brought forward,” Giertuga said. “That meeting came and I wasn’t given an invite.”
Council also heard a presentation about the health impacts of Bell Mobility’s three proposed telecommunications towers by Michelle Addison.
The city has no say in the process other than to let the federal government know that Bell has consulted the community on its plan to put up towers on Oliver Road, Arthur Street and Mapleward Road.
Council is expected to have a more in-depth discussion about Bell’s towers next week but Addison said she wouldn’t be able to come to that meeting so she wanted to present her case earlier.
She said they have collected 102 signatures against the towers but despite this Bell is going to go forward.
Most residents in the area believe that the towers will have negative health effects, she said.
“Radio frequency is a form of electromagnetic energy and in other words it emits radiation, which we all know is harmful and even deadly in certain exposures,” Addison told council. “Telecommunication towers emit RF energy at varying levels depending on factors such the number of antennas that exist on the tower.”
Addison suggested council make a formal submission to Industry Canada, who regulates radio communications, to oppose the location of Bell’s towers. She went on to suggest council create a telecommunication towers policy to protect the public.
