By Kathy Gallant

City working to educate public on local traffic bylaws

Jan 23, 2018 | 1:05 PM

While many rules of the road are universal, municipalities typically have a set of traffic bylaws specific to their region. Meadow Lake has its own rules, which the city’s bylaw enforcement department are working hard to educate the public on.

At a recent inter-agency meeting, Community Safety Officer Joe Hallahan shared a few of these rules with the group. He chose this platform due to the large cross-section of community groups who could pass the information along.

Four areas he chose to highlight as some of the most common infractions were: people crossing the centre lane to park on the opposite side of the street, specifically on Centre St.; school zones; speed limits; and the numerous uncontrolled intersections throughout the city. The fine for crossing the centre line could be up to $150, while school zone infractions start at $215 and go up.

“We were asked at the beginning of this month to do more enforcement on people crossing the centre line from businesses on Centre Street,” Hallahan said. “So we’ve started increasing our foot patrols, and between then and now have caught three different instances. It is dangerous for other drivers, has caused accidents in the past, because when people are backing out of angled parking, it would be difficult to see those people doing U-turns.”

The school zones in the city are in effect 24 hours a day year round, and while some other cities choose allotted times, Meadow Lake council chose to keep the speed limits down due to the number of playgrounds associated with local schools.

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“Even if schools not in, there’s the potential for kids to be using those facilities, and for them to be running around,” Hallahan said. “Drivers just need to be aware of that and extra careful in those areas. Speeding in those areas is something we do see, and we take it very seriously.”

Other than school zones, the speed limit throughout the city is 40 km/h unless otherwise marked. These limits are posted with signage at the highway entrances to the city. Meadow Lake also has a large percentage of uncontrolled intersections, with the exception of a few main thoroughfares marked with stop or yield signs. Hallahan said that the uncontrolled intersections force drivers to proceed cautiously through city streets.

“That’s why council at the time decided that back when they did, because you have to slow down, check if it’s safe, then proceed when safe to do so,” he said. “It should help reduce people from gaining excess speed in those areas.”

kathy.gallant@jpbg.ca  

On Twitter @ReporterKath