Walk on the left signs are not coming to the Municipality of Grey Highlands.
At its committee of the whole meeting on May 8, Grey HIghlands council turned down a recommendation from the Road Safety and Community Partnership committee that would have seen signs telling pedestrians to “walk on the left facing traffic” put up in the municipality’s various hamlets and villages starting with Eugenia.
The signs are meant to improve pedestrian safety by reminding walkers on local roads to face in the direction of oncoming traffic.
Members of council felt the signs were not necessary in light of a number of pedestrian safety recommendations council had approved earlier in the meeting.
“I don’t think general signage goes far enough,” said Coun. Joel Loughead. “As pedestrians, we’re all very aware we’re meant to walk facing traffic.”
Loughead suggested the municipality could be better served by concentrating on other traffic calming measures and getting good policy frameworks for pedestrian safety in place.
Coun. Nadia Dubyk said there were probably more effective ways to get the “walk to the left” message out than putting up a lot of signs around the community.
“This sounds more like an education campaign,” she said.
Council also received three other recommendations from the partnership committee for information.
The recommendations were to lobby Grey County to reduce the speed limits in Feversham and Ceylon to 40 km/hr and to create a special community safety zone in Feversham where speeding fines are increased.
Members of council felt the pedestrian safety initiatives, which included the development of policies for speed limits and community safety zones, approved earlier in the meeting would cover the speed limit recommendations made by the committee.
