Skip to content

New West aims to help residents navigate speed humps

The City of New Westminster is trying to make the road less bumpy for residents wanting speed humps to help tackle traffic in their neighbourhoods.
speed bump

The City of New Westminster is trying to make the road less bumpy for residents wanting speed humps to help tackle traffic in their neighbourhoods.

A speed-hump policy, which was endorsed unanimously by the city’s neighbourhood traffic advisory committee, outlines a process for evaluating and implementing speed humps.

The intention of the new policy is to allow residents to initiate low-cost and low-impact vehicle speed reduction on local streets with a reduced administrative process. Steps in the process include: having residents voice a formal concern to the city by filling out a form; getting staff to collect traffic counts, analyze that information and determine if speed is a concern and humps are a suitable solution; and having residents survey neighbours on their block to determine the level of support for the installation of speed humps (at least 50 per cent support is needed.)

Staff noted that there’s often a diversity of opinion in the community about whether residents support having speed humps

“It enables us to say the majority of people on the street support this measure, there’s been a process around it, it’s a consultation process,” Lisa Leblanc, the city’s transportation manager, said about the support needed for humps to be approved. “It just enables us to put any concern or disagreement to bed.”

Coun. Mary Trentadue said the policy will be helpful as community members often wonder how they can get speed humps on streets in their neighbourhoods. She thinks it would be interesting feedback to find out how many speed humps are rejected because they don’t get enough support from neighbourhoods.

While staff had recommended council endorse the proposed speed-hump policy, council referred the policy back to staff and the appropriate city committees to ensure renters, not just property owners, are engaged in discussions about potential speed humps in their neighbourhoods.

Barring any unforeseen activity, Leblanc said staff’s plan is to report back to council on May 27 and provide clarification concerning input from renters. She said the intention has always been for the policy to be inclusive of renters, but that wasn’t made sufficiently clear in the report considered by council in February.