Nanaimo council slows down on school zone changes

According to a city staff report, many school zone signs in Nanaimo, such as this one on Uplands Drive, are not compliant with provincial law and the RCMP is unable to enforce the posted speed limit. Feb. 29, 2024. Photo: Mick Sweetman / CHLY 101.7FM

Nanaimo city council is putting the brakes on removing school zone speed signs that don’t comply with the provincial Motor Vehicle Act.

Currently, it is illegal for RCMP to enforce school zone speed limits at many schools in the city as the “roads do not abut the school building or school grounds,” per a report by city staff.

According to the report, if a school’s property line is over 50 meters from the street, the school is not considered to be adjacent to that street and the school zone speed is unenforceable

Staff recommended that council repeal the existing school zone policy and adopt a new one that follows provincial law and can be enforced.

At the city council meeting on February 26, councillor Ben Geselbracht instead moved that staff present options at a future Governance and Priorities meeting for enforceable 30 kilometres an hour speed limits in high risk pedestrian areas, such as near schools.

“I'm seeing Duncan reduce speed limits to 30 kilometres an hour, and I believe some work has been done in Saanich. I know Sidney, B.C. is also looking at reducing speed limits to 30 kilometres an hour in some select areas in the city,” he said.

Geselbracht said he would like to see the city lower speed limits around schools before rescinding the existing school zone policy,

“If we can lower speed limits in certain sections, and we have the authority to do that, we go ahead and do that first. And then when we need to rescind the bylaw, we can maintain the 30 kilometre speed limits in these long standing areas that have been there,” he said.

Councillor Sheryl Armstrong said setting a municipal speed limit in certain areas would mean the city would have to enforce and manage the new bylaw.

“We would have to have what the fine is going to be, we're going to have to have a system for dispute of the tickets,” she said. “Like in Vancouver when they write tickets under their municipal bylaw, you don't go to traffic court, you go to their municipal traffic court. So it's a huge, huge process, which will probably take a lot of time.”

Councillor Janice Perrino argued that changing the school zone signs to permanent 30 kilometres per hour speed limits would be counterproductive.

“I think people are much more apt to speed,but if they see that this is actually a school area, they're much more anxious to be careful because there are children present and often if they're short you can't necessarily see them above the dash.”

Mayor Leonard Krog opposed the motion for another staff report, saying council already received one on the matter and it said that the current school speed zones are not legally enforceable.

“The reality is that a law that can't be enforced is a bad law,” he said. “We have enough trouble now and complaints about the limited abilities of the RCMP to enforce all kinds of other laws, whether they be under the Criminal Code or the Motor Vehicle Act, and given the public response to this, a couple of emails is not going to move my position on it.”

Gesselbracht’s motion for a staff report passed with a 5-4 vote with the mayor and councillors Armstrong, Thorpe and Perino opposed. The item was then unanimously referred to the city’s new public safety committee.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.