Keep calm, carry on, signs urge
Otonabee Ward Coun. Kim Zippel is providing free lawn signs encouraging motorists to drive slower in residential neighbourhoods
New lawn signs are popping up across Peterborough to encourage motorists to drive more slowly through residential neighbourhoods.
The signs are being offered for free by Otonabee Ward Coun. Kim Zippel, with orders being accepted through her website.
Anyone in Peterborough city and county can have a sign while supplies last, she said — and she’ll personally deliver.
Zippel said she had 300 signs made at her own expense to hand out to citizens who are concerned about speeding on their streets.
She still had 255 signs available earlier this week, after six days of handing them out.
Zippel said she did it as a community service because she’s concerned about the safety of Peterborough’s vulnerable pedestrians (such as children, for example).
“I’ve always been concerned about traffic safety,” Zippel said. “And there’s a generic concern across the entire city about speeding in neighbourhoods.”
The idea for the signs came from a constituent who knew about a similar campaign in Toronto.
Zippel didn’t copy the designs from the Toronto project: she and a graphic designer and an ad specialist collaborated to come up with three designs from which to choose, showing seniors, children, or simply imploring drivers to “Go Slow!”
Zippel said she had the signs made up after doing some research into their efficacy.
She notes one California study found the signs reduce traffic speeds in residential neighbourhoods by 16 per cent.
Similar signs have been offered by other groups, such as CAA roadside assistance ser
vice, she noted.
“Safer driving is the goal, but it’s also economical and ecological for drivers (to slow down),” Zippel said. “There’s spinoff benefits, when we slow down.”
Meanwhile, the city is also collecting public feedback on traffic concerns in five neighbourhoods, one in each ward in Peterborough.
Consultants will study the neighbourhoods and recommend traffic calming measures — speed bumps, for example — and council will consider those ideas later this year.
The traffic calming measures put into place in those five pilot neighbourhoods will be part of what the city’s calling a “toolkit” to address traffic concerns elsewhere in Peterborough.
But in the meantime, she said the signs Zippel’s offering will “fill the gap.” “It empowers the community, because they’re doing something.”
To request a sign from Zippel, visit otonabeeward.ca/feat ured-projects/go-slow-ptbo/