Photo radar welcomed by councillors

If West Kelowna city council gets its way, photo radar could be coming to the streets of the municipality.

Councillors expressed enthusiasm this week for asking the provincial government to allow towns and cities to install photo radar as a way of convincing drivers to slow down.

“I used to hate and detest photo radar. That’s one of the reasons I really supported a change of government in 2001,” Coun. Duane Ophus said, referring to a widely popular pledge by the Liberal party in that year’s provincial election to get rid of photo radar if elected.

“But I have come to realize the error of my ways,” Ophus said, suggesting photo radar would be an inexpensive and effective way to curb speeding on West Kelowna streets.

Traffic calming measures, such as roundabouts, narrowed streets, speed reader boards and speed bumps have been largely ineffective in reducing vehicle speeds, councillors agreed.

“I’m not a big fan of traffic calming,” Coun. Rick De Jong said. “What does work is issuing speeding tickets, hitting people in the pocketbook.”

Traffic-calming measures have cost the municipality about $600,000 in the last few years. In many cases, Coun. Carol Zanon said, the measures have proven to be “absolutely useless”.

Council was presented with a staff review that showed vehicle speeds had not significantly declined a year after many traffic calming steps were taken. In some cases, motorists actually drove faster along the traffic-calmed streets.

Chief administrative officer Jim Zaffino said he’s such a big fan of photo radar that he has already been raising the issue with provincial officials.

If municipalities were allowed to once again use photo radar, Zaffino said, the city could put up many boxes, only a few of which might have cameras on any given day, in an effort to deter speeding.

West Kelowna council will likely forward a resolution to the fall meeting of the Union of BC Municipalities convention asking the provincial government to reintroduce photo radar. Councillors may also seek a meeting directly with whichever party forms government.

But Mayor Doug Findlater doubted the proposals would get very far.

“Good luck getting photo radar during a minority government, whatever the stripe is,” Findlater said. “It’s not very popular, especially for the people who get that little envelope in the mail.”