The City of Colwood Official Community Plan presents a vision for our community that includes family-friendly neighbourhoods and realistic transportation choices. This may include traffic calming on local streets in residential neighbourhoods when it is supported by data and by the residents of the area.
Temporary Traffic Management Pilot Projects
Colwood is committed to involving residents in increasing the comfort and safety of their neighbourhood. The City involves residents in temporary pilot projects to clarify concerns, trial various approaches and gather feedback from the community about their effectiveness.
Traffic management initiatives include a number of stages and take time to complete once initiated. Please note that the City receives many requests each year and must prioritize, plan and schedule them consecutively.
How do speed reader boards collect traffic data?
The City installs temporary speed reader boards to collect traffic data. This data is used to assess the need for traffic calming initiatives. The reader boards record speeds and count vehicles traveling in BOTH DIRECTIONS.
The reader boards are purposely configured NOT to display the vehicle speed so that drivers do not change their normal behaviour in response to the sign. This allows the City to collect the most accurate data about vehicle speeds in your neighbourhood.
What methods work best for traffic calming?
Traffic calming is commonly achieved by implementing a combination of the three E’s: Education, Engineering and Enforcement. Partners like West Shore RCMP and ICBC play an important role in education and enforcement.
Speed humps are often requested, but are not always the solution to increase comfort and safety. Other approaches such as stop signs, road markings and traffic direction can be considered. This list of traffic calming measures provides some ideas.
The engineering devices adopted by the city are in accordance with the "Canadian Guide to Neighbourhood Traffic Calming", published by the Transportation Association of Canada (www.tac-atc.ca).
Where has traffic management been considered in Colwood?
Examples of locations where traffic data has been collected to evaluate the need for traffic calming measures include Sunridge Valley Drive, Mount View Avenue, Aldeane Avenue, Promenade Crescent, Woodpark Drive, Kildew Road, Pickford Road, Terrahue Road, Maryanne Crescent, Hagel Road, Wishart Road, Lagoon Road, Milburn Drive, Metchosin Road and others.
For more information, contact the Colwood Engineering Department at 250-478-5999.