Bill No. 86 - Motor Vehicle Act - Second Reading Debates

MS. CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to rise today to address Bill No. 86. This bill, from our perspective, essentially is not really more than housekeeping; it fills a gap. It's funny that I'm the member who's speaking to this first - as someone who has an urban constituency I probably have the least interaction with TIR of anyone in this Chamber just about. It's not nothing, I do have some provincial roads, but certainly if there are any issues relating to sidewalks or traffic, generally I'm in touch with my municipal counterparts, but this is the exception.

So, I get calls on a regular basis from people in my constituency asking me to change the speed limits. Dartmouth South, while it has quite a vibrant little downtown, is also a main transit route out of the core of HRM out to the beaches, and out to all parts of our province really. So, we have thoroughfares like Portland Street and Pleasant Street, and even Crichton Avenue, that take people out to the Circumferential Highway and beyond. I think it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that cars regularly travel the routes that I just mentioned at 60, 70, 80 kilometres an hour without batting an eye.

What this legislation proposes to do is to amend the Motor Vehicle Act so that municipalities can lower speed limits. We're not asking, nor are our municipalities asking frankly, for the ability to raise speed limits. We recognize that there can be major safety concerns, traffic planning, all kinds of issues involved with the raising of speed limits; however, there are many, many situations in my own constituency and beyond, where municipalities have been asking for the power for quite a long time to be able to lower speed limits where appropriate. I understand that this may trigger other changes, but from where I sit, Mr. Speaker, it's pretty simple.

I mentioned the busy streets, Portland Street and Pleasant Street, Crichton Avenue. I'm sure almost all other municipalities have analogs for these busy thoroughfares that cars simply travel down much too quickly. Some of the issues involved with those streets in fact, have to do with children, Mr. Speaker. We have spoken in this Chamber before about issues with the distance that children are expected to walk to get to school, issues with busing.

One of the issues that I hear almost every time this distance comes up when a parent contacts me, which is more frequently now, is I don't want my child crossing that street. I don't feel comfortable with my child crossing this, in certain cases, four-lane thoroughfare with cars racing down, who may or may not be paying attention to crosswalks, and where the nearest lighted intersection might be blocks and blocks out of the way.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I've had a constituent who has kept their child home from school, certainly not on my advice, but they said look, my 14-year-old has to walk an hour to school and back. They have to cross an incredibly busy street, and I frankly don't feel comfortable. I understand that concern, I would share that concern if I were that constituent.

But this isn't the only issue, it's not just these big thoroughfares. Mr. Speaker, I live at the corner of a street that is probably travelled six or seven blocks from one end to the other. There's no stop sign on the street, there are no traffic humps, or whatever they call them. There's no traffic calming measures at all.

The speed limit, I believe, is 40 kilometres an hour. I would say the average speed with which cars travel down this very steep hill is about 60 to 70 kilometres an hour. I've lived on this street for six years and in that time, there have been three major accidents. One time, a car plowed into the side of a house, another time a car rolled completely over, and another time it ran into a light standard. Mr. Speaker, this is just unacceptable. We need to be able to act.

We all know, as I mentioned earlier - many of my colleagues, more than myself - how challenging it is frankly for TIR to stay on top of the endless issues around roads and maintenance in this province. We have a tough climate, we have a lot of infrastructure. It's a big job, TIR has a big job, so it's not surprising to me that an issue like lowering a speed limit on a residential road in a pocket of the province probably doesn't float real high up on the list when you come to them with those issues.

On the principle that we should be utilizing all of our resources to their maximum efficiency, Mr. Speaker, it just makes sense to me that in a case like this, we would be approaching - we wouldn't have to approach TIR, that we should put the power in our municipalities to make these very simple changes, to lower a speed limit, so that they can make sure those municipalities are safe.

This is about a basic level - it's an order of government issue, I would say. It's also an issue of communities being able to advocate for themselves. We don't have school boards anymore, we don't have local health authorities anymore, but we still have municipal governments. (Interruption) At least for now, we still have municipal governments.

Mr. Speaker, as we've said in this Chamber so many times, there is a logical reason to have local decision-making for any number of reasons - for health care, for education, and in this case, for traffic and safety in certain circumstances. A municipality is going to have a much better sense of what makes sense, as I said, on a single road in a corner of the province, frankly, than I suspect the hard-working staff in their office in Halifax at TIR. To me it makes eminent sense that we would allow municipalities to be able to make the decision, in a codified way, that is responsible, that takes into account all the outstanding issues. I'm sure this could be arranged so they would be allowed to lower speed limits.

Mr. Speaker, I think it enhances the safety in our communities, it puts local decision-making where it should be: in the hands of our municipal governments. Frankly, it takes some of the burden off TIR, who have bigger fish to fry. They have big roads, they have highway projects, they have infrastructure projects, that's what we expect. They are building schools, that's what we expect TIR to do. They do that job pretty well, and we should let them do it. For these smaller issues that I suspect tie up staff and require advocacy, let's not ask them to do that.

Mr. Speaker, I'll finish by saying that every call I've gotten related to speed limits - and I'd say it's probably somewhere between 10 and 20 since I've been in office - almost all of them have said, I called my councillor and my councillor specifically asked me to call you, and not only did my councillor ask me to call you and ask you about this, but they also told me to call you and ask you if we could make this decision next time.

The municipalities aren't passing the buck. Quite the opposite - they are asking for this power. They are ready to take on the power of being able to lower speed limits, being able to ensure safety in their community, and they are requesting it from the province. So, Mr. Speaker, I see no reason why this small piece of authority that ensures safety in communities couldn't be delegated. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill.


Published by Order of the Legislature by Hansard Reporting Services and printed by the Queen's Printer.

Available on INTERNET at http://nslegislature.ca/legislative-business/hansard-debates/