A St. Albert resident has taken matters into his own hands after getting a photo radar ticket in a playground zone he says shouldn’t exist in the winter.
After getting a ticket on Forest Drive in the Forest Park playground zone last December, self-styled “Robin Hood” Gerry Vercammen now does his best to keep other St. Albertans from getting ticketed at that particular location – with a large warning sign that reads, “Playground 30 km.”
“My intent is to get them to come out and re-evaluate the judgment on enforcing this location, and obviously ultimately forcing them to remove it,” he said. “Whatever arguments they use, public safety or whatever, I don’t buy it.”
He emphasized he’s not opposed to photo radar in general, but says enforcement at this particular location is unfair – and unfair enforcement may tend to turn the community against law enforcement.
Vercammen, a retired police officer with 28 years of experience including in enforcement, said he wants to see the three major changes. First, he wants improved signage for the playground zone, which is along a curved road with boulevard trees that sometimes block the signs. Second, elimination of the playground zone altogether in the winter months when he says no kids use the park area. Finally, he wants the city to stop speed enforcement for the playground zone during winter months.
“This here is tantamount to making school zones enforceable on Saturdays, Sundays and in July and August,” he said. “That’s basically what this is doing.”
Stu Fraser, the city’s Peace Officer Program supervisor, said unambiguously the city would not stop speed enforcement along Forest Drive, which he described as a “problem area.”
“Forest Drive continues to be an area where we see high numbers of speeding violations,” he said. “I don’t want to go out and start doing enforcement at a playground zone after somebody gets hit.”
While there is some direction given to enforcement officers about which zones to enforce – and every playground zone and school zone get enforcement – once those obligations are met officers enforce zones with the highest traffic volume and speeding concerns.
In 2015, the Forest Park site had 140 enforcement visits, although the specific numbers of tickets issued aren’t available.
Fraser said the concerns about that particular playground zone is that there is often a high volume of pedestrians from not just the sports field or playground, but also from the students at nearby schools and from people using the ravine trail system, which also crosses Forest Drive in that area.
During two school days this week around 3:15 p.m., no kids were using the park or playground area, but dozens of high-school-aged children could be seen walking along the sidewalks and crossing the street at the crosswalk by Forest Park.
“I don’t know how to predict when children will be in a playground zone, so we’re trying to do random and regular, general-deterrent appearances there,” he said. “(It) gets more than its share of attention because we continue to catch higher numbers of speeding violators.”
As for Vercammen’s argument the playground zone shouldn’t even exist in the winter, that is not something the city is looking to review.
Dean Schick, the city’s transportation manager, explained both playground and school zones are established according to both provincial legislation and city bylaws, and said the criteria for determining what should be a playground zone is based on Alberta Transportation recommendations.
The Forest Park playground zone meets those criteria, and the prospect of implementing a playground zone for some seasons but not others isn’t likely.
“Playground zones in the City of St. Albert run from eight in the morning to an hour past dusk,” he said.
Shick added the city wants to reduce ambiguity and confusion as to what speed zones might be and when they are enforced, and noted a big concern with setting seasonal time frames is how to determine year over year when the snow might fall, melt, and what impact that might have on the number of kids in the playground zone.
“If we have a seasonal factor, how do we address these safety concerns and address the opinion of a driver or resident it shouldn’t be a playground zone in the winter months?” he said.
In terms of signage, the city is reviewing options and an update to the traffic bylaw and Transportation Master Plan are expected to go before council next month. The viable time frames for playground zones may be reviewed as part of that.
Residents are encouraged to provide their feedback by contacting the city’s Transportation Department.
While Vercammen doesn’t accept the public-safety argument from city staff, he said the city should use the reported $5.2 million 2015 budget surplus, much of which is attributed to speed enforcement, to improve signage at the city’s playground zones and bring in flashing lights similar to existing the school zone signs.
Council discussions on how to spend that surplus are expect to take place next month.
