It looks as if North Battleford council is about to approve temporary stop signs at the Lawrence School location in the city's north end.
Council's Municipal Services Committee approved a recommendation to council to install a three-way stop at 20th Avenue and 102nd Street.
The recommendation now goes to the full council for a vote at Monday's regular council meeting, though it wasn't unanimous as both Mayor Ian Hamilton and Councillor Ron Crush voted against it.
The recommendation was moved by Councillor Brad Pattinson, who has been calling for the temporary stop signs to be put up in school zones as a way to slow traffic so children can cross safely at the designated crosswalks. A report is due to come to the full council on the issue Monday, and a meeting on the issue of safety in school zones is to occur in early December between city officials and the school divisions.
The issue of what to do about speeding traffic in school zones has come to the forefront in the last few weeks on the heels of meetings with parents at Lawrence School, where calls were made to do something to address the issue in that area.
Councillor Grace Lang has been pushing for the speeding issue to be addressed and Monday said she would be supporting the recommendation. Lang also noted the stop signs would be installed on a trial basis at that one location.
"If it has the effect that we hoped that it does, then we can take it further," she noted.
Councillor Trent Houk also said he would support the recommendation, repeating Lang's comments the location might be a good spot to try the stop signs to "look at what the actual effect is going to be." He also said he noticed a lot of speeding traffic through that area.
Houk expressed the view that four-way stop signs should be put up in every school zone.
However, a dissenting voice on the use of stop signs at crosswalks came from Stewart Schafer, the public works director.
"Stop signs are generally used for traffic," said Schafer, not for safety at crosswalks. He suggested having more stop signs up at school zones might lead to children thinking the drivers will have stopped, and that would lead to more jaywalking and ultimately to more accidents.
He pointed to the incident Nov. 17 where an eight-year-old boy was struck by a car in the school zone at Notre Dame School at around 3:30 p.m. It was described at the meeting as an unfortunate incident where a young boy had run across the street between the crosswalks and ended up struck by a vehicle. The boy is now back at home recuperating after being treated in hospital.
Staff Sgt. Phil Wilson referred to the incident and noted even stepped-up patrols would not have prevented it from happening.
Stepped-up RCMP efforts to patrol school zones were acknowledged by Houk.
"I'd just like to thank the RCMP for their increased presence in the school zones. I know it's not going to end all or solve all the problems, but it will help," said Houk.
He also agreed with Wilson's assessment of last week's school zone incident, saying he watches too many neighbourhood children "darting across the street whenever" and adds parents need to educate their children and tell them they can't be doing that and should follow the proper procedure.
