Police will consider ‘next steps’ if council removes school zone

Saskatoon police are not saying if they will continue to enforce the 30 km/h speed limit in a north end school zone if city council endorses a recommendation to remove it and the signs are not taken down immediately.

“We would consider next steps from an enforcement perspective once approval is given,” police spokeswoman Alyson Edwards wrote in an email Monday afternoon.

Last year, police wrote 87 speeding tickets in the school zone on Lenore Drive, adjacent to Bishop James Mahoney High School.

City administrators recommended it be removed after conducting a neighbourhood traffic review.

City council’s transportation committee voted Monday to send the proposal to council so that Coun. Randy Donauer, whose ward encompasses the school zone, could weigh in. Donauer sits on the committee but was absent Monday.

Council is now expected to vote on the matter, contained in the broader neighbourhood traffic review, on March 23.

If approved, the portion of the school zone on Primrose Drive, in front of the school’s main entrance, would remain in place.

The Lenore Drive school zone has long annoyed some north end residents.

Bishop Mahoney administrators unsuccessfully recommended the 50 km/h speed limit be restored in 2003, a year after school zones came into effect.

The city’s director of transportation told The Starphoenix last week that removing it makes sense, as Bishop Mahoney is a high school, meaning there is less risk of students running into traffic.

Other factors supporting the decision include traffic lights at Lenore and Primrose and a proposed “active pedestrian corridor” at Lenore and Redberry Road, part of the same package of recommendations, Jay Magus said.

If approved, the signs would likely come down this summer, Magus told The Starphoenix.

The decision to remove the school zone would not be unprecedented.

In 2018, the city removed the school zone speed limit from Balmoral Street near St. Paul’s School in Richmond Heights.

Mayor Charlie Clark said the lack of pushback against the recommendations, which emerged from consultations with local residents, was “a sign of hard work well done.”