While Estevan city council continues to debate the speed limit for the 1100 and 1200 blocks of Fourth Street, it appears that the speeds for another busy road won’t be changing.
The speed limit for the 300-block of 11th Avenue – which provides access to city hall, the Estevan Police Service building and the Estevan Fire Rescue Service building – is expected to remain at 50 kilometres per hour.
Council had discussed plans to add angle parking for the eastern half of the 300-block of 11th Avenue, and reduce the speed limit to 20 kilometres per hour. The parking stalls would have been reserved for city staff and people accessing the EPS building.
But now that the city has purchased a parcel of land adjacent to the police station that will be transformed into a parking lot, it’s expected the plan will be abandoned.
A final decision on the lower speed limit on 11th Avenue has yet to be made.
“My recommendation, certainly, would be for council to revisit the issue, given the fact that if they do go ahead with using the property for expanded parking, then would there still be the need to use … 11th Avenue for parking?” said Ladouceur.
Ladouceur didn’t receive any complaints as of yet, from people who were upset about the proposed speed limit reduction. He believes people recognized that it was just one block in front of city hall.
He noted people who were accessing city hall, the police station and the fire hall were often forced to park on Third or Fourth Street, taking up parking spaces for residences and businesses.
Parking is a big challenge in the area, he said. Police officers and firefighters should have a proper parking area, and they shouldn’t be out in the street. There also needs to be proper parking for people accessing the buildings.
“The idea is to provide more parking for all the city departments, so by getting some of those police vehicles off the street and where they should be in a parking lot, you open up more street parking for those other departments, and by purchasing this land, you increase the ability for further city parking,” said Ladouceur.
A proper parking lot also makes more sense than having angled parking, and backing out onto 11th Avenue.
When the city purchased the land next to the police station, there was discussion of using it for an expansion of the present police station, but that would be a long-term project.
