The District of Elkford is changing its municipal speed limit from 50 km/h to 40 km/h.
The decision by District Council to reduce the speed limits was made a couple of weeks ago during their Strategic Planning meetings and will be carried out in the coming days.
As of Monday, November 25, 2019, the new 40 km/h municipal speed limit will be in effect.
Mayor Dean McKerracher said District Council had concerns for quite some time about speeding drivers in Elkford and that more and more citizens were speaking up and voicing their concerns.
“We’re concerned with the speed in the community and so we need to do something about that, and so Council chose to reduce the speed from 50 to 40,” McKerracher told MyEastKootenayNow.com. “Hopefully that will help us in controlling some of the speeds and some of the dangers.”
Elkford staff have been in talks with the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and RCMP so the public is alert and notified about the new speed limits and are not caught off guard by the change.
McKerracher believes the majority of residents will be in favour of the reduced speeds.
“We only get backlash from the guys that are already breaking the speed limit,” said McKerracher. “The people that are within the speed limit, I think they agree and I don’t think there will be much kickback from them it’s just the people that are already breaking the speed limit now so I don’t see a lot of kickback.”
McKerracher noted that Elkford staff will not be adding any new signs or changing sign locations but just swapping the 50 km/h signs to 40 km/h signs.