City council received and filed a communication from Moose Jaw’s Engineering Services department during its regular meeting on April 22, effectively moving the city along toward adopting 30 kilometre per hour school zones citywide. 

“Among the many recommendations and priorities of the Transportation Master Plan, safe routes to schools has been identified as our priority,” explained Bevan Harlton, director of engineering services. 

“What’s happening on our school sites is, we have signs in wrong locations, hung off of the wrong types of things, a lot of them are old and they’re inconsistent and largely our school zones need an upgrade across the board.” 

The city’s updated Transportation Master Plan is being worked on by KGS consulting group out of Regina. KGS submitted a draft report on Safe Routes to School to city council in July 2023. 

One of the key recommendations of that report is to reduce the speed limit in school zones across the city from 40 to 30 km/h. The communication stated that Moose Jaw is the last jurisdiction in Saskatchewan with a population over 5,000 to make this change. 

The new speed limit will have an adjusted enforceability timeline of 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., seven days a week. 

According to Engineering Services, the plan to revamp 20 school zones will continue through 2025 at a total cost of about $4.2 million over the next five years, and consist of the following phases: 

  • Update and replacement of pedestrian ramps - 2024  

  • Refresh and adjust line painting to accommodate pedestrian corridors – 2024 

  • Replace and update signage at school zones – 2024, 2025  

  • Replace and update signage at detached playgrounds and other public facilities – 2025 

Completion of these phases will also make Moose Jaw more compliant overall with the latest edition of the Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices of Canada (MUTCDC) — including signalized traffic lights, all regulatory, warning, and informational traffic signage, and line paint markings on City roads. 

The traffic control improvements, including signalized light controller programming, physical intersection redesigns, and light wiring, make up $3.75 of the estimated cost, which includes both design and actual construction.

The signage portion of the budgeted $4.2 million includes adjustments based on upcoming developments such as the new South Hill school for an estimated cost of $365,000.

[Editorial note: The initial version of this story could have been read as reporting that all $4.2 million will go toward signage. In fact, that budgeted amount is for the entire project.]

Key stakeholders, including SGI, Moose Jaw EMS, MLAs Tim McLeod and Greg Lawrence, both school divisions, the fire department, and more have indicated their support for the change, and most city councilors are also in agreement. 

“Thank you very much for this report and I really appreciate this initiative and that, as you said, we’re kind of the last to do it,” Crystal Froese said, “so, it’s kind of long overdue to address this.” 

However, the plan is not uncontroversial. Councilors Kim Robinson and Dawn Luhning spoke up to express their opposition, opining that the change would cause slower traffic for no real benefit. 

Robinson pointed out that the response from the Moose Jaw Police Service — while expressing support — also noted that, “there have been no pedestrian injury collisions reported in any school zones from January 1, 2019 to present. The 40 km/h speed limit in school zones appears to have been effective in minimizing risk.” 

"We haven’t had any issues, so why are we changing it?” Robinson asked. “I’m not agreeing with changing the speed limit just to fall into line with everybody else, when we haven’t had any issues with it at our current rate.” 

“This is a tough one for me,” Luhning said. “I’m not sure that we need to be dropping it, but that’s neither here nor there, it’s going to pass, it’s going to go through, so." 

The next regular meeting of City Council is May 13.