One thing that has always made me proud of Oakville is the truly democratic way in which the town is run. If you want to speak to an issue at council, call the clerk and you will be given a spot on the agenda. If you call your councillor, you’ll get a call back. Our council still meets in the evening, which is unusual for a community our size. They do this for two reasons. The main one is that it means working residents can see the operations of the town and have direct input. The other is that it makes it possible for some councillors to be part-time, which means they are not solely professional politicians, but still have one foot in the world in which their residents live in their daily lives. This puts a strain on councillors’ personal lives, but it makes for a more participatory democracy.
On Monday January 25th, town council passed a motion that, over the next two to three years, will see speed limits on all residential streets and minor arterial (collector) roads in all of Oakville reduced to 40 km/h. Personally, having lived with traffic rushing along side streets during the Lakeshore Road reconstruction, I thought this was long overdue. The issue has been the single most consistent source of calls, emails and social media traffic for decades. I have no doubt that champagne corks were being popped in ratepayer groups across Town, and that this change has very broad public support.
The motion also asks staff to find funding for enforcement, cameras, more signage, and other calming measures, as it is well established that dropping the speed limit won’t change behaviour on its own. These will have budget implications.
If speed limits aren’t enforced, gradually speeds creep up, even among law-abiding citizens who aren’t wanting to speed, but are just in a hurry: without enforcement the signs have become invisible.
In the same way, if no one is watching council, process might, over time, be overlooked for expediency, on the grounds that the end justifies the means.
Nowhere in the agenda, available to the public well before the meeting, was there anything that might have indicated to a member of the public that a town-wide speed reduction would be decided on that evening. The only hint was a staff report on an experiment in reducing speeds on two streets after a pilot. The issue was whether the reduced speed limits on those streets should be maintained. (The pilot in fact demonstrated that speeds on the streets did not decrease after the limits were reduced. Staff recommended maintaining the lower speed limits but spending on other measures to achieve the desired result.)
The motion that was passed to lower speeds on hundreds of streets all across town represented significant “scope creep” from the agenda item.
Apparently, Ward 1 councillor Sean O’Meara brought forward the town-wide motion in the days prior to the meeting. The only public input received at the meeting was from residents’ associations (RAs), one from a neighbourhood with one of the two streets in it (West River Residents’ Association), and the others from Ward 3. The Ward 3 RAs were told about the meeting by their councillors the day before or the morning of the meeting. The delegate from West River was careful to point out that he could only speak to the issue of the staff recommendation for the street in his neighbourhood. He had not had the time to consult with his board for authority to speak to the Town-wide motion, he said.
Three councillors, Ward 6’s Natalia Lishchyna, who called the motion “out of the blue”, Ward 5’s Jeff Knoll, and Ward 2’s Ray Chisholm raised the issue of public input.
Three councillors, Ward 6’s Natalia Lishchyna, who called the motion “out of the blue”, Ward 5’s Jeff Knoll, and Ward 2’s Ray Chisholm raised the issue of public input. (While supporting the motion, Chisholm said “I’ve never seen anything like this.”) Most councillors obviously, and probably rightly, felt they had the public’s pulse on this issue based on what they had heard from residents. No harm, no foul.
But if it was so clear what public delegations would say, why not just wait till the next council meeting so that the item can be clearly identified in the agenda? After all, we’ve waited decades and implementation will take two to three years, what would be lost be waiting two more weeks? The issue has been a tug of war between staff and council for years, says O’Meara, and it was time to break the logjam.
Two councillors voted against the motion. Natalia Lishchyna, (Ward 6) who, while agreeing that driving needs to be slowed, argued that evidence shows traffic speeds don’t change when limits are reduced, and that the decision would be costly and ineffective without many other measures, and thus the motion was political rather than evidence-based; and Tom Adams, (also Ward 6). Adams also agreed with residents that we need drivers to slow down, but he too feels a blanket approach has risks, and that a more granular approach as recommended by staff would be more appropriate. So, there are differing points of view, and doubtless some citizens would have expressed these and other points had they known of the decision on the table. In fact, a 2019 survey of Oakville residents found they were split on the issue of speed limits.
Nevertheless, there is little doubt here that council followed the will of the people with respect to their desire to see cars slowed down in residential areas. Further, they reinforced the principle that professionals advise and inform, but decisions are made by the citizens through their elected representatives. Decisions involve what we want, not just what analysis recommends. O’Meara deserves our admiration for overcoming the inertia that has held action on the issue up for so long. As Mayor Burton said in the meeting: “You have made history tonight. The single longest running issue in my 27 years of life here in Oakville has finally been faced and actually dealt with.”
But process matters. We would not want to see an agenda item about a pilot for a retail cannabis store in one neighbourhood morph into a town-wide mandate without the whole town being aware such a decision was on the table.
It can be argued in this instance that the whole town has had lots of input, but clearly it wasn’t aware that that a town-wide decision was being made that evening. Quite often, even residents who support a motion have valuable experience and input that makes the motion better over the course of a council meeting. That opportunity was lost here.
Oakville residents will have input in the fall into the implementation timeline and details of this new speed limit reduction. But if Council wants Oakville drivers to slow down, it would do well to heed its own advice and not blow past the speed limit signs of proper process and public consultation on future decisions affecting the whole community.
