Keeping an eye on traffic on Sir Walter Scott Avenue

Last summer I commissioned an in-house traffic study on Sir Walter Scott Avenue, following some concerns raised over speeding by both residents of this street and Ilan Ramon Crescent. Are traffic calming devices such as speed bumps or humps needed?

The study showed that the average number of cars per day was around 700 , which means a lot of people are coming and going as we knew. We usually use 10 km/h over the 85th percentile as our rough indicator of whether traffic calming is warranted or not. In our case, the 85th percentile was around 48 km/h, so not overly fast , but very near the mark. People seem to be driving faster in the south direction on average. I will discuss this with council and senior staff over the winter to see what kind of action we will take in the spring.

Our coordinator of Urban Development Eric Ibey has provided major support on this dossier. He is the city’s de facto traffic guru. Last June he was a special guest at my District 2 Information meeting. He listens to the concerns of residents and even goes to meet them when warranted.

Eric has enacted some interim measures, taking away the two or three parking spots that were between Ilan Ramon  and the stop sign on Kildare Road, on the west side  Sir Walter Scott. We believe this will improve visibility for people turning out of Ilan Ramon and create more room for people exiting and entering from Kildare.

Over the summer we had allowed parking on both sides of the street  on Sir Walter Scott. We made it clear this was being done strictly to accommodate the residents of the building at 6600 Kildare Road as their garage was being repaired. Work on that project is now complete so we restored the no parking rules as they were before.