It would surprising to us if Estevan's council in their collective wisdom, decide to impose a 40 kilometre per hour speed limit on a stretch of Fourth Street in the central business district, between the 1000 and 1300 blocks.There are several good reasons to reject the proposal and only one good reason for accepting it. We believe the arguments in favour of rejection far outweigh the desire to have our traffic stream take a more leisurely drive through our downtown business sector. Estevan has enough stop and go traffic, thanks in large part to the CPR and traffic light synchronization. These factors already hinder attempts to have traffic flow efficiently. Adding another just doesn't make sense to us. Enforcement of a new speed limit zone would just give our local policing teams another headache. They are already pressed in trying to enforce the several speed limits already in place in various sectors. We would much prefer to see more attention paid to those who insist on speeding noisily past our well marked school and play park zones. Slapping those motorists with $500 to $1,000 fines would be far more beneficial than asking business district motorists to slow down to a jogging speed so they can admire the view. There was an unofficial petition being circulated just recently that called for the removal of the proposed motion to reduce the speed limit. That petition received the support of a large segment of the population and while its wording and presentation would probably not stand up to legal scrutiny, the message it delivered was clear. Citizen Trent Knobel, who provided the impetus for the petition, suggested that slowing traffic in the main sector of Fourth Street would chase the trucks and cars on to Fifth Street and Third Street. We don't necessarily agree with that scenario as being one that would weigh most heavily on the council in their decision-making mode, but it's certainly one that has to be considered. Estevan is a very busy community. To suggest that motorists will willingly brake to reduce their vehicles to a 40 km/h pace within a certain space in the central part of the city, is, quite frankly, a day dream.We should be spending our community strength on such things as urging the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure to find a designer for the proposed semi-truck bypass. That is a much more important safety, commercial and environmental concern. We have come to accept the fact that Estevan pedestrians will insist on jaywalking, as they do in many other Prairie communities, and they also understand implicitly that they do so at their own peril. So there will be the occasional misstep and results could be horrific, especially on a four-lane business throughway, but we feel accidents of this type will occur whether traffic is flowing at 30, 40, 50 or 60 km/h since the main cause of these incidents is sightline obstruction, not necessarily speed.We believe that our city councillors have many other issues of importance to consider as Estevan moves forward with an ambitious agenda of growth. Clamping down on motorists within a four-block stretch, shouldn't be one of them. We suggest that council get back to the business of frying the bigger fish.
