City council ponders axing school zone on Lenore Drive
A school zone that has bedevilled some north end residents for almost two decades could be on its way out after receiving a failing grade during consultations — but not until school’s out for the summer.
City administrators are recommending the 30 km/ h speed limit on Lenore Drive adjacent to Bishop James Mahoney High School be removed, just as the school’s administrators did — unsuccessfully — in 2003.
The school zone in front of the high school, on Primrose Drive, would remain in place.
In an interview, the city’s director of transportation said removing the Lenore Drive section made sense because there is less risk of someone running into the street outside a high school and there are traffic signals at the intersection.
Jay Magus also noted that the school zone in question is not in front of the school’s main entrance, and is “kind of protecting a church,” a reference to St. Anne’s Catholic Church, which is attached to the school and faces Lenore.
The same review also recommended an “active pedestrian corridor” where Lenore intersects with Redberry Road and Roborecki Crescent, which Magus said should also make crossing the street safer.
“There were lots of requests from the public to consider removing that (school zone) … It makes sense to remove it,” he said.
A report headed to city council’s transportation committee next week says the recommendation should be implemented within one to two years, but Magus said it will likely happen this summer, pending approval.
Residents also suggested removing the school zone further down Lenore, across from Marion M. Graham Collegiate, but Magus said that will be part of a broader review of posted speed limits set to be completed next year.
The cost of implementing the report’s recommendations is pegged at $329,000, which a report states can be covered using funds already set aside in the neighbourhood traffic management capital project.
The review is part of a six-year project, now in its final year, aimed at improving traffic flow and pedestrian safety on a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood basis. Implementing all the recommendations will take a few more years.
The project was launched after attempts to calm traffic in Mayfair, in Magus’s words, “went sideways.”
Those neighbourhood traffic reviews have in recent years resulted in at least one other major change to a school zone. In 2018, the city removed the school zone from Balmoral Street near St. Paul’s School in Richmond Heights.
City council voted to introduce school zones in the summer of 2001 after a long and contentious debate, but it was not until the following year that city crews began posting more than 800 signs bearing the new speed limit and hours of operation — 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
School zones came into effect in September 2002. City police issued 275 school zone speeding tickets during the first week.