The talks about lowering the Cold Lake speed limit on residential roadways have halted.
Cold Lake City Council has decided to keep the speed limit to 50 km/h.
The choice was made after the council was given a community engagement report from 900 residents living in and around the municipality with almost 95 of the respondents living in Cold Lake.
54 percent of respondents said there was no speeding issue in the city while 46 percent said that they felt that there was a speeding issue.
“It was clear that, even among the majority of residents who feel there is a speeding issue in the city, a speed limit reduction is not the preferred response,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “Given the effort and the cost associated with making such a large-scale change throughout the community, council felt it would be best not to proceed any further down this road.”
When asked for a solution, the public favored increased enforcement by 45 percent and a vehicle-activated speed sign by 36 percent. The survey also found speed calming devices were favored by 34 percent of respondents, a reduction in the posted speed limits was favored by 19 percent while 17 percent wanted to see photo enforcement of speed limits.
“We received a strong response to the survey and we thank everyone who made their voices heard,” Copeland said. “We looked at the issue from a number of different angles and we are confident that we can settle this issue without having to make major changes in the posted speed limits across the community.”
The idea of lowering speed limits was brought forward through a notice of motion early in 2022 and the council then directed the administration to develop a draft implementation plan. The plan was going to examine the discussions and research done by other municipalities that considered a similar question and conduct public consultation on the issue.
The public survey was open from July 4-25.