It seems to have been a case of overthinking at Westlock County.
The Jarvie Community Council has been the victim of speeders from cars, tractors, bikes and trucks ripping through their hamlet. The community did their due diligence and tried everything possible to slow down drivers, from random law enforcement stakeouts, to more signs and lowering the speed limit. Still nothing.
Finally they landed on speed bumps. They asked the community and the majority were in favour but the final decision rested in county council’s hands. They quashed it.
The county had the opportunity to try the speed bumps for six months — test it out, see how it goes, and if it doesn’t work, you remove it and start over with another idea.
Instead council blamed snow graders as the problem, as if a community has never encountered this problem before. Somehow the Village of Clyde is surviving just fine.
Not only that, council took the credence of a report from Hawaii that had little relevance to a community the size of Jarvie in rural Alberta, talking about detouring drivers and spreading the problem. When there is only one main street in Jarive, where could traffic possibly go?
Here we have a group of concerns citizens that came together with a solution, or at least proposed one, and yet council kept bringing up ideas that already been tested and failed, not something the community wanted, or were too cost-prohibitive in the first place.
We can appreciate them for trying but really it was a bit fruitless.
Speed bumps aren’t usually a first choice; they’re more like a last resort. In this case, the community feels their children are in danger playing on or near the streets and this was their solution.
That should be taken into consideration and if safety is being disregarded for inconvenience, we have a problem here.
Councillors are representing ratepayers, and not only the ones in their division. They should be listening to them.
They were certainly responsive to the Pickardville community when they asked for more signs and lower speeds, so why not Jarvie?
