Four traffic speed reader boards will be placed around Williams Lake in the near future.
The Insurance Corporation of BC (ICBC), through its sharing road improvement program, has agreed to reimburse the city for the cost of two boards in the amount of $14,000, while the city will cover the cost of the other two.
The initial cost of the project is $24,274, excluding taxes. At its regular meeting Aug. 21 council heard the city will use $40,000 from the 2012 budget to cover all costs.
Each reader board is $5,918 plus tax, and then there’s an additional cost of data-logging software.
In a report to council Kevin Goldfuss, director of municipal services, said the boards purchased by the city will be placed in areas of concern, such as school zones.
“The data that will be collected will be extremely important to staff and council and will assist the city when decisions are made regarding speed reduction, traffic calming and public awareness.”
Coun. Ivan Bonnell asked if the expense was approved in the 2012 budget discussions and heard from chief administrative officer Brian Carruthers an error was made when council asked staff to go back into the budget to identify potential areas to reduce the budget.
“We gave council two options and, by error, the speed boards had been put into that, when in fact approval had been received for the speed boards with funding coming out of the community works fund and did not affect general revenue at all,” Carruthers said. “I think that may be where the confusion came in, that it had been removed because it wasn’t. We did intentionally resubmit the project to council for approval because it didn’t affect general revenue.”
Council voted in favour of the speed boards, except for Coun. Danica Hughes, objecting to the added cost to the city of data-logging software.