Oliver Rd. speed limit change in the works

After Monday's city council meeting, Thunder Bay residents may have to ease up on theirgas pedal, as councillors could approve changes to speed limits and the createa community safety zone.

City administration said it wants to lower the speed limit on Oliver Road, between Golf Links and the university, to 50 kilometres an hour. During the last two years, police have handed out close to 2,000 speeding tickets to drivers on that stretch of road.

The speed limit change comes after council voted last year to install traffic lights along Oliver Road at the hospital entrance, which is hoped to make it easier for people to cross the road between the university and the hospital.

Those traffic lights should be lit up this fall.

Council may also create a community safety zone along Dawson Road, between Hutton Park Drive and Hunter Road.

It will cost slightly more than $33,000 to create the zone and buy two speed radar signs that illuminate to tell drivers how fast they are going in the 70 kilometre-an-hour zone. Those changes arent expected to come about until 2013.