Speed humps ahead: Charlottetown adding more this year, changing policy for 2025

Charlottetown will soon have more speed humps than ever before, with even more expected next year.

Council voted 7-3 Tuesday night to add 25 speed humps this year and change how city staff determine where they go.

Currently, residents can gather signatures from neighbours on their street and submit an application to the city requesting a speed hump be installed.

Next year city staff will determine where speed humps go proportionally to the number of kilometres of road in each ward.

The hope is that it will even things out a bit more throughout the city, says Coun. Julie McCabe, chair of the city's public works committee.

"I think we're hearing that speeding is an issue everywhere," McCabe said.

"Some humps have been in place forever and they don't even really meet our current criteria. So, technically they really don't fit being there. I think they're just trying to tidy up and make sure that they are where they're supposed to be."

Children and safety concerns

Streets that would never have a speed hump, such as University Avenue, weren't included in the calculation of roadways there are per ward.

Councillors Terry Bernard, Trevor MacKinnon and Alanna Jankov voted against changing the policy. Coun. Justin Muttart was not at the council meeting. Bernard worries it might mean less speed humps in his ward

"The concern I have is if you have a ward and the numbers are going to go down, yet the city approved these. If you put them in the past as a safety issue, then I have a problem with pulling them out now," Bernard said.

"You're putting some of the kids in some safety issues because we have a lot of small parks, we have the community centre, we have a multi-purpose facility, we have youth groups, so that there's a lot of crossing of streets in some areas."

Ward 10 sees a lot of through traffic, especially in Hillsborough Park, Bernard said, and he's worried about road safety if any of the humps are taken away.

"Blind hills up and down… kids could be on their bikes or they're walking to a park or what have you and you can't have the police everywhere all the time," he said.

While McCabe agrees the policy has been working as is, she thinks it's time for a change, she said.

"It's been a program that has been really effective for a long time and it seems a few of the areas are a little more heavy with the speed humps and now based on the new criteria and the growing population they are just trying to disperse that a little bit," McCabe said.

Coun. Bob Doiron voted in favour of changing the policy. Doiron feels his ward has been neglected and hopes the shift in policy will bring more speed humps to his area to make things more even overall.

The number of speed humps will go up to 125 next year. Council voted 5-4 to raise the amount from the current 75. Councillors McCabe, Doiron, Norman Beck and John McAleer voted against the resolution.

While McCabe voted in favour of adding more speed humps this year, and to change the policy for next year, she voted against increasing the number.

"Cost and just the sheer amount of time it actually takes to lay them down," McCabe said, adding it already takes about a month to put down the current humps.

"We only have so many people working, so many human resources. So, if we start adding things that we're going to do, then that means something else is going to be left out."