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West Alder’s needs are greater

September 7, 2017   ·   0 Comments

Re:  Solving Spencer’s Speed Problem (August 17, 2017):

As a resident of West Alder Street since 1997 I felt compelled to respond to Todd Taylor’s article regarding the increased traffic and speed on Spencer Avenue.  Now the residents of Spencer know what the residents of West Alder have been dealing with for the 18 years leading up to the opening of Spencer Ave. to Riddell Road, and actually continue to deal with accept the volume is a little less with East Spencer opened up.  In reality, Spencer will probably never have the volume West Alder experienced for years because now there are two streets providing access to Riddell from B-Line.

West Alder was the only thoroughfare from B-Line to C-Line and Brown’s Farm since 1997 with the volume of traffic causing the signs at both ends of Diane Drive stating that the street is not a ‘thru-way’ from C-Line to Broadway as well as the additional stop signs on Diane Drive.  But I digress.

Here are the reasons that West Alder St. should be treated no differently, and perhaps requires more attention, than Spencer Ave. as per Mr. Taylor’s article comments:

1. West Alder actually has 4 feeder streets from the main residential area of Settler’s Creek: Abbey, Sherwood, Glengarry and Saxon.

2. Although Saxon is just a short street between Alder and Glengarry, it is the main entrance to Princess of Wales Park.  The park which consists of a soccer pitch, baseball diamond and playground is busy 7 days a week, 12 months of the year, including evenings and weekends.  Spencer Avenue ES is busy Monday through Friday during schools hours, not in the evening and weekends for less than 10 months of the year if you include school holidays and breaks.

3. Even though there is not a school directly located on West Alder, children walk to school to Spencer Ave. and Westside Secondary, and at one time Montgomery Village ( although I’m not certain this is still the case for Montgomery?), yet the speed has never been reduced from 50 km/h.  The 40 km/h speed zone on Spencer causes drivers to slow to 50-60 km/h while speeds on Alder remain at 60-70 km/h (and at times higher) because of the 10 km/h difference.

4. A section of Spencer has No Stopping and No Parking signs on one side while West Alder has parking on both sides of the street.  At times when there are community events and tournaments on the fields, travelling along Alder is at best an obstacle course at high speed.

5. There are no residential driveways near the corner of Spencer and B Line.  There are 14 residential driveways near the corner of Alder and B Line which makes it dangerous at times both exiting or entering these driveways due to vehicles quickly turning and cutting the corner turning from B-Line onto Alder.  Cars following residents westward along Alder assume drivers are turning at the corner with their signal on and slam on the brakes when someone ahead of them turns ahead of the corner into their respective driveway.  It’s a miracle there hasn’t been more collisions in this area, and I’m sure Councillor Wilson can attest to this fact since he was a resident of this area for several years!

Residents of Spencer should be thankful of the extra police speed enforcement duty because of the school zone on their street.  Residents of West Alder would be very thankful for the same police time to monitor the issue on our street, as would many through streets in town I suppose!

In any event, my only hope is that if the residents on Spencer feel the necessity to pursue the reduction of the speed limit on their entire street as a result of their one year traffic experience, that the same consideration for vehicle volume and speed analysis should also occur on West Alder for those residents who have dealt with the same issue for the 18 years since 1997 and the Spencer east end opening, otherwise the town will be setting a dangerous precedent for all streets in town with similar issues.

Harry J. Bell

Orangeville resident

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