The first transportation committee meeting of 2020 got started with a resident sharing her frustration with a school zone on a busy Saskatoon street.
Sandra Knipple says 33rd Street where the St. Michael’s school zone is can be tricky to navigate.
She adds the block which is also home to Tim Hortons, St. Michael’s Church and Sask Polytechnic can be quite busy and at times it can be hard to determine that you’re in a school zone, as she says the signs aren’t placed in the best locations.
Knipple says she would like the City have traffic flow better through the area along with signs indicating that St. Michael’s School is coming up.
When speaking to the committe, Knipple said she didn’t realize that St. Michael’s School was there to begin with, thinking that it was an extension of the church.
Given that the street is an arterial roadway, a traffic review in the area hasn’t been conducted as the City typically excludes arterial roads from its traffic reviews.
Councillor Cynthia Block said during the meeting that Knipple’s concerns aren’t new ones where people don’t always know there’s an elementary school in the area. She suggested the idea of possibly installing signs ahead of time letting motorists know that they’re approaching St. Michael’s School.
Jay Magus, Director of Transportation with the City said that once you install such signs, the problem is five years down the road, all school zones will have the same signs.
The City of Saskatoon is currently in the process of reviewing all school zones in the city through the speed limit review on residential streets.
The St. Michael’s school zone is also home to a photo radar camera.