Penetanguishene speeders might want to get a car wash to look pretty for the camera, as automated speed enforcement received approval from town council.
A special meeting of council was held recently where the municipality adopted a partnership with the town of Newmarket for an automated speed enforcement service.
“The public spoke loud and clear that speeding's an issue in town,” said Mayor Doug Rawson to MidlandToday following the meeting, during which speeding vehicles could be heard from the Robert Street council chambers.
“We are one step closer bringing another tool to the community with this partnership with Newmarket.
“We haven’t allocated where the speed cameras are going to go,” Rawson added. “What we have enabled is the process and the policy (for this) to occur.”
Although the recent meeting was behind closed doors, residents were provided a full presentation and discussion back in May on the Newmarket proposal as well as a traffic control trial and calming policy report.
Expected to be cost-neutral for the cost of one camera installation through funding from traffic violation costs, the presentation noted nearly $20 per ticket would go to processing while Penetanguishene could collect roughly $35 for a speeding ticket 11 kilometres per hour over the limit or around $55 for a ticket 15 kilometres over.
“We haven't looked at the costs and what the revenue side is,” said Rawson. “What we're doing is we're bringing forward a tool to help the concerns that the public have told us, which is speed.
“We didn't start this journey to look for revenue options for the community. We looked at this as: how do we make our streets safer? We cannot bring more police in over and above our contracted service level; this was not a revenue discussion, it was a discussion about community safety,” said Rawson.
Rawson also praised recent efforts from the OPP for improving visible exposure in town. “I'm hearing from people that they're seeing more police presence; we're seeing the data, and I think our inspector (Southern Georgian Bay OPP detachment commander Inspector Todd Pittman) deserves some credit for that.”
The May 2024 traffic control trial and calming policy report, including automated speed enforcement presentation from Newmarket, can be located on the agenda page of the Town of Penetanguishene website.
Meetings of Penetanguishene council are held on the second Wednesday of each month, and can be watched live on Rogers TV cable 53 when available, or on the Rogers TV website.
Archives of council meetings are located on the Town of Penetanguishene YouTube channel.
