New plan to put brakes (and mufflers) on Edmonton's loud or lead-footed motorists

Loud or lead-footed motorists will be targeted in a new Edmonton traffic enforcement campaign that will focus on eight trouble spots in the city.

Groat Road, the High Level Bridge and the stretch of 97th Avenuefrom the legislature tunnel to the river are among eight roadways that will get extra attention from Edmonton police and peace officers between now and mid-September.

"As a police service, we've seen it and messaged the public repeatedly about ongoing incidents of excessive speeding and traffic noise pollution," Sgt. Kerry Bates, with the traffic safety unit, said in a news release Wednesday.

"We want citizens to know that we hear you, and we're going to vigorously enforce these laws over the summer with the goal of ridding our streets of this emergent problem."

Project TENSOR, which stands for Traffic Enforcement Noise/Speed Offence Reduction, is a partnership between the city, the Edmonton Police Service and peace officers, grew out of a restructuring of the police traffic services division.

One of the results, Bates said, is that police will specifically target noise issues.

"This is probably the first year that we've actually targeted the noise specifically, without just making it a service-wide initiative for people to pick up on their own," Bates told reporters.

It's not unusual for traffic-related noise and speeding complaints to increase in the spring, but the issues are worse this year because of the pandemic.

Traffic on city streets has been lighteras a result of COVID-19 public health restrictions forcing a vast majority of businesses and public centres to close. Meanwhile, more people are staying close to home, which has seen police receiving more noisecomplaints.

"We'll bring the focus specifically on noise in the hot spots, the areas where the complaints were coming from those being Whyte Avenue, the river valley, downtown Edmonton," Bates said.

Between March 21 and May 19, police caught 154 drivers travelling 50 km/h or more above the speed limit. The fastest vehicle was doing 214 km/h in a 100 km/h speed zone, while another driver crossed the High Level Bridge at 156 km/h.

"Traffic issues surrounding speeding and vehicle noise typically pick up when the warmer weather arrives, so that's certainly not new," Bates said. "Some drivers, however, continue to use our roadways as speedways due to lower traffic volumes associated with the COVID-19 pandemic."

The eight hot spots will be monitored for a full range of infractions, including speed, noise, stunting, helmet or general equipment violations, seatbelts, suspended drivers and Criminal Code offences, police said in the news release.

The eight areas are:

• 97th Avenue from James MacDonald Bridge to 109th Street (Legislature Tunnel).
• 109th Street from 97th Avenue north to Jasper Avenue.
• Jasper Avenue from 95th Street up to 116th Street.
• Whyte Avenue, from 99th Street to 109th Street.
• Groat Road.
• River Valley Road from Groat Road to 105th Street.
• 105th Street from River Valley Road to 100th Avenue.
• High Level Bridge.

In addition, Project TENSOR will host a series of "Amnesty Testing Events" for motorcycle riders to ensure their bike meets noise exhaust standards.

The first will take place Thursday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. in the parking lot of the NAIT Souch Campus at 7110 Gateway Blvd.