The City of Charlottetown is spending $50,000 in an effort to slow traffic down in its neighbourhoods.
A request for proposals has been issued in which the city is asking for 40 speed humps, temporary infrastructure that can be removed.
Of the $50,000 figure, $40,000 will be spent on the speed humps while the other $10,000 will be spent on signage warning that there are speed humps on the street.
“During the budget . . . there were a number of councillors looking for speed humps in their area, so it was agreed upon that money would be spent to purchase the speed humps,’’ said Coun. Terry Bernard, chairman of the public works committee.
Public works is responsible for purchasing the speed humps and issuing the tender, but it will be up to police where the humps are actually placed.
Bernard said there was a tender issued over speed humps earlier this year, but the company supplying the humps couldn’t meet the city’s request for 40. Therefore, it was re-tendered so that 10 would be delivered initially with more coming when the company could supply them.
“I don’t think we’re going to need 40 speed humps to go down right now. We’re just building an inventory for the next few years.’’
The tender closes at 2 p.m. on Friday and will be awarded at the next public council meeting on July 9.
“There’s been a number of concerns from other councillors (to slow) traffic down on certain streets. Police can’t be everywhere all the time so there’s certain streets people will be asking for and police will look at those streets and determine whether that’s the street that speed humps will go down on,” said Bernard, adding no specific streets have been identified yet.
“I think there has been success in places where they have been put down in the past.’’
Mayor Clifford Lee said it’s well past time these humps be used to slow down traffic. But, he’d like to see the city go one step further.
“I personally would like to see these speed humps become permanent humps that would stay in place 12 months of the year,’’ Lee said, adding that many cities across Canada have permanent speed humps in place.
The speed humps Charlottetown is asking for right now are plastic and can’t be left on the asphalt during the winter because snowplows would destroy them.
Lee said he would like to see that change.
“You go into many cities and the speed humps are made of asphalt and I think that’s where we need to go.’’
