When Penticton council heads to the Union of B.C. Municipalities next week, the expansion for Penticton Regional Hospital won’t be the only axe they have to grind.
City council has also managed to get a request for the province to bring back photo radar, for use in school zones, on the list of resolutions being brought forward at the UBCM.
CIty council first came up with the proposal when Parkway Elementary parents asked the city for help purchasing a speed reader board — they had already raised about half the $8,000 cost — to help slow traffic speeding past the school.
The Parkway parents were eventually rewarded for their initiative with financial aid from the city, but not the first time round, when council decided to confuse the issue by adding their photo radar — which the province abolished in 2001 as costly and ineffective — request to the motion.
We applaud council for putting the welfare of the community’s children first, but a photo radar ticket arriving in the mail two weeks later is not going to prevent a child from being injured, or worse, by a speeder. Proactive measures like speed reader boards, education and the traffic calming measures the city is planning to install at Parkway are far more effective at making sure that child doesn’t get hurt in the first place.
It’s unfortunate that of the 156 resolutions on the UBCM agenda, photo radar is the only one brought forward by Penticton. Unfortunate, because this time could have been used more effectively than resurrecting photo radar.
A resolution urging funding to employ more RCMP reserve officers to write tickets in school zones would not only have a greater chance of provincial approval, but there is nothing that chills an inveterate speeder more than a constable leaning in the window to ask for an autograph.