Oakville native Cathy Duddeck, candidate for town and regional councillor of Ward 2, is looking to address traffic concerns that have resulted from increasing population and also wants to make sure Oakville’s growth directly reflects the needs of its residents.
She said one of the ways to tackle the traffic issue is to put in more “pedestrian activated traffic signals”. These signals only stop vehicles when a pedestrian presses the button to cross the intersection.
“The nice thing about that is it doesn’t stop ongoing traffic the way a normal traffic light would where it’s synchronized and it has timers,” explained Duddeck. “It slows down traffic when you need to, but otherwise allows full traffic continuity going through, so it doesn’t slow things up.”
Pedestrian activated traffic signals have already been put in place on Rebecca Street as well as the intersection of Morden Road and Lakeshore and Duddeck said they have worked extremely well.
As for Oakville’s growth, she believes the answer lies in finding a good balance between what the developers are entitled to under the legislation and what the residents in the community want.
“I can appreciate that the developers have an objective and an agenda. They want to develop a site. They want to maximize their investment,” said Duddeck. “It’s how to do it in such a way that you address the problems. Whether it’s height, traffic, noise, even if it’s something as simple as shadow impact. If you have a building that’s much taller than a neighbouring building it means they don’t get as much sunlight. So they can’t enjoy their backyard.”
Duddeck wants to make sure these kinds of issues are taken into consideration before any building starts.
Since she began her time on council Duddeck has accomplished many goals she is proud of. Among them was her effort to stop the demolition of the Oakville Arena. She said she caught wind of the demolition idea early on and began pressuring the powers that be to consider renovating or rebuilding instead of an all out demolition.
“I was able to work with the community, the residents, and municipal government to say, ‘How can we go about this?’” Duddeck said. “And as a result we now have four options for us, two of which are to retain it and renovate it, two of which are a complete rebuild.”
Duddeck is running for her second term as town and regional councillor and has previously served two terms at the town level for the same Ward.
Contacting Cathy Duddeck
home: (905) 845-2326
email: [email protected]
District: Ward 2
Position: Town & Regional Councillor