Electronic speed reminders coming to Stewardson
A new electronic speed-reader sign will be installed on Stewardson Way just south of 6th Avenue for traffic heading eastbound into New Westminster from the Queensborough Bridge and Marine Way.
The Gordian knot of exits, on-ramps and highways at Stewardson and 20th St. near the Queensborough Bridge is one of the gnarliest intersections in the Lower Mainland, let alone New Westminster. I live just blocks away and regularly end up in Burnaby when I mean to go to Queensborough, or vice versa.
So it’s no surprise to me that Stewardson Way is a high-crash location in New West. Drivers are distracted and frustrated, and just want to slice through as fast as possible. In an attempt to calm the Mr. Wheelers among us, the City of New Westminster and ICBC are placing an electronic speed-reader board on Stewardson Way, just south of 6th Avenue for traffic heading eastbound into New Westminster from the Queensborough Bridge and Marine Way.
Said Mayor Wayne Wright in a city media release, ”Our location in the centre of Metro Vancouver means that a lot of traffic funnels through New Westminster. The new speed-reader board on Stewardson Way will remind drivers to slow down as they travel through the Royal City and drive safely.”
The new electronic speed-reader board will display and record the speed of passing vehicles and the time of day. Information gathered can help pinpoint when excessive speeding is likely to occur and when to deploy speed enforcement.
New Westminster now has five speed-reader boards in operation throughout the city, with four placed adjacent to elementary schools in the Heights, Sapperton, Downtown and West End neighbourhoods.
The new speed-reader board at Stewardson Way will be rotated between two other high-risk locations in the future: McBride Boulevard at the approach to the Pattullo Bridge and along Brunette Avenue.
For those of you who didn’t get the ‘Mr. Wheeler’ allusion (and didn’t click through the link), here’s the classic Goofy toon, ‘Motor Mania.’ Watch it and I’m sure you’ll see why it came to mind as I wrote this post …
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I’ve seen the board mounted there just east of River Road for a few months and thought it looked like a digital read-out board, but as its always been off wasn’t sure what it was for.
Glad to see it will be reminding people Stewardson isn’t a highway (sadly with the proposed NFPR I have to suffix that statement with “yet”) and instead a road that traverses neighbourhoods with families and children.
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