Roads and speeding
Residents report 100 km/h on 40 and 50 roads. At the same time, a third of our road value is in poor condition. Both problems have the same answer: put the money where residents live.
Speeding: two different problems
Enforcement is Niagara Regional Police, not the Township. Council can formally request enforcement blitzes on specific roads, and I will, but it cannot direct officers.
Traffic calming is a Township decision on Township roads. Speed humps are cheap but are a real problem for snowplows, farm equipment and fire response. Speed cushions with gaps for wide vehicles, radar speed display signs and painted narrowing are the rural compromises that work. West Lincoln and Pelham both have traffic calming policies. Wainfleet should too.
My commitment
A traffic calming policy with a resident petition process and a published list of candidate streets, so it is not whoever shouts loudest. Radar display signs as the first, fast step on the roads residents name most.
Road condition: what the engineers say
Wainfleet maintains about 272 km of road: 163 km surface treated, 12 km asphalt, 96 km gravel. The 2024 Asset Management Plan says roads need $5.4 million a year and the Township is reinvesting at about a third of target. 34 percent of road network value is poor or very poor. Our asphalt roads average nearly 80 years old.
We have 39.5 km of road per 1,000 residents. West Lincoln has 25. That is why our public works cost more per person, and it is not something council can change. What council can change is how much of the operating budget is available to move to roads.
The caveat
Wainfleet will always spend more per resident on roads than a denser township. Road repair has first claim on every dollar of savings. My commitment is that savings from the operating review go to the infrastructure levy, every year, and that the reinvestment rate is reported publicly.