How these Avalon Peninsula communities are slowing down speeders ahead of summer

Several towns across the northeast Avalon Peninsula are strengthening their measures against speeding drivers ahead of the summer months.

Paradise is one of them.

In Newfoundland and Labrador's third-largest municipality, speeding is a common complaint, says Mayor Dan Bobbett.

"We hear regularly from the residents in the neighbourhoods, on the main streets, all over. It's a big issue," Bobbett said. "We've talked to our neighbouring municipalities, and those councils feel the same thing."

That's why in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, new peace officers are patrolling the streets, with the power to ticket speeding or distracted drivers.

Meanwhile, updated policies in St. John's now allow resident petitions to influence decisions on where traffic calming measures are installed, and the annual budget for traffic calming has been raised to $200,000.

Radar and rubber curbs

In Paradise, 257 temporary rubber curbs, at a cost of about $28,000, will help slow down traffic across the town this summer. Their purchase was agreed upon during a council meeting in mid-April — and it's a tool Bobbett said the town is "quite excited about."

"We can use them anywhere. So we can lay them down in one neighbourhood for two, three weeks or four weeks, and then move them around to another area," he said.

"It's quite interesting, and because they're so flexible and so easily shaped into whatever we want, then we can form them into roundabouts or triangles or narrowing of lanes."

In addition to the curbs, the town also bought two radar units to collect data that will help determine whether the curbs are working or need to be moved elsewhere. If that project proves successful, said Bobbett, permanent curbs could be installed in high-speed areas.

"Obviously, the permanent solution is more expensive than this temporary solution," he said.

"We know that we are making some inroads, but there's more to be done. And we're going to continue with these rubber curbs to identify the areas where we need those permanent solutions the most."

Bobbett said collaboration with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary is invaluable in making sure the collected data is acted on.

"We get the data and we pass that data along, say, that a certain street is seeing high speeds," he said. "Then when they patrol, they give out tickets, and they're visible, obviously. So it's a deterrent in itself."

According to RNC numbers, traffic complaints for Paradise have slightly decreased in recent years — from 331 in 2020 to 272 in 2022. The number of issued tickets for traffic-related offences changed similarly — while numbers rose from 268 in 2020 to 397 in 2021, they went back down to 241 in 2022.

Const. James Cadigan said different factors cause an increase or decrease in speeding traffic — such as the time of day or year. With temperatures increasing, so does speeding, he said.

A fluctuating number of issued tickets, Cadigan said, has to do with many factors — not necessarily with fewer cruisers on the road.

"Our traffic enforcement unit rely on calls for service, information from the community, collaboration with municipalities, to best appropriate their deployment," said Cadigan.

"With regards to 2020, you look at, there was probably three months there where there were very few cars on the road and 2021, we were kind of back to a regular traffic flow. And 2022, the year in the rearview mirror right now, we're still looking at those numbers and trying to make sure that we can best assess those numbers to look ahead and see where we're going to put our resources."

For Cadigan, it's hard to say which of the towns' measures will work best to combat speeding, but municipalities implementing their own strategies sends a clear message to drivers, he said.

Meanwhile, the provincial government is pursuing its own strategies to deter speeders — a pilot project initially announced in late 2019, originally planned to be implemented in late 2020 or early 2021, will be launched Tuesday.

The program will introduce traffic speed cameras to some of the province's roads, including in Paradise and Mount Pearl.

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