Police have now handed out 90 tickets over bridge detour
After giving verbal warnings when the bridge closed last month, now police are handing out $110 tickets
Peterborough Police have handed out 90 tickets so far to motorists using three closed residential streets near the Warsaw Swing Bridge, which has been out of commission for repairs since early October.
In a decision made by city staff, Old Norwood Road, Maniece Avenue and MacFarlane Avenue were closed to through traffic at the start of October when the Warsaw Swing Bridge on Parkhill Road East was closed by the Trent-Severn Waterway for replacement.
The bridge replacement is expected to take eight months.
City staff have said the swing bridge takes10,000 vehicles daily and the closed residential roads cannot handle that traffic safely.
But the detours are lengthy, with cars being redirected far out of their way along Lansdowne Street, for instance.
City police took the approach of doing verbal warnings early in the closure period. They stopped more than 600 cars when the roads were first closed and spoke to the motorists. But now $110 tickets are being issued.
Sgt. Ryan Wilson of the city police traffic unit wrote in an email to The Examiner on Thursday that 90 tickets have been issued and that police have also given out eight written warnings (in addition to the 600 verbal warnings).
Peterborough County OPP Const. Joe Ayotte said on Thursday that OPP officers have not issued any tickets to motorists for illegally using MacFarlane Avenue, Maniece Avenue or Old Norwood Road because it’s outside their patrol area.
Since it is on the border, OPP would assist city police on these matters, he said, but haven’t been called upon to do so.
Meanwhile, some residents of the city and county are angry about having to take the lengthy detours and have pushed for the roads to be reopened.
Peterborough County council has asked city council to consider reopening the roads because the closure is making it harder for rural residents to g et
around.
Neither the county or the closest townships — Douro-Dummer or Otonabee-South Monaghan — were consulted before the road closures occurred, states a letter to city councillors from county councillors.
In the city, an online petition
organized by East City residents to ask city council to reopen the roads had 723 signatures by Thursday (one week after it was put in circulation).
One of the East City residents who launched the petition, Andrew MacGregor, told The Examiner earlier this week that he
and others have noticed an “uptick” in aggressive driving and speeding since the road closures went into effect, because motorists are more harried.
The online petition is available at bit.ly/35mTcp5.