Momentum continues to grow for a grassroots slower speed advocacy group.
The ‘Always 30 in Beach Grove residents’ group was started in November.
The self-funded campaign is designed to serve as a reminder to drivers to respect the community’s speed limit of 30 km/h.
In the early days of the initiative, sixty-plus signs were posted throughout the community and in recent weeks, three new large signs were erected.
The first is at 16th Ave. by Gillespie, to catch folks cutting through to 12th Ave. and down to Boundary Bay. The second is at 58A and 17a Ave. by Beach Grove Elementary and the third is on Morris and Gillespie to catch folks turning off 12th Ave. to cut down Morris, Enderby or Farrell.
To date there are 115 lawn signs in front of Beach Grove homes that each resident purchase for $20 a sign.
The group was created almost entirely through social media shortly after the summer with support from the City of Delta and the Delta Police Department.
The Always 30 in Beach Grove team is comprised of four people who are a good cross section of what makes up the Beach Grove community: Yvonne Anderson, business owner, Steve Simpson, communications consultant, Peter Lunt, retired senior, and Alana Golub, wife and mother of two young children.
Simpson said the campaign was designed to have three components.
“Residents of Beach Grove are always walking the streets of our neighbourhood. While an increase in vehicle volume passing through the community is a reality of growth on the Tsawwassen peninsula, speeding through our streets is not acceptable,” said Simpson. “Beach Grove streets are narrow, winding, unlit and most do not offer sidewalks as an option, therefore, pedestrians share the streets with cars. This is why the City of Delta reduced our speed limit to 30kph. The lawn sign component of our campaign was designed to let others in the community know there is growing support for a campaign to slow down when on our streets.”
Simpson said the money raised for the lawn signs paid for the recently erected larger road signs.
He added that the City of Delta and Delta police have been supportive of the campaign since its inception.
“The third component of this campaign is to have the City and DPD put some tangible support behind their verbal encouragement in the form of increased enforcement, tools such as speed radar signs that tell drivers they are over the speed limit and better yet, traffic calming measures on key streets such as 16th Avenue, Beach Grove Road and Gillespie. Traffic humps on Gillespie and Beach Grove Road are insufficient to deter higher speeds,” he said. “We would also suggest that the official Community Plan for Tsawwassen (and liveable community plan for Beach Grove) be revisited by the City (as they are more than 25 years old) and present road and infrastructure projects underway might be contradictory to the intent of the original OCP.”
Anderson said the Always 30 in Beach Grove group have been approached by residents in English Bluff, Boundary Bay and Ladner communities to get more information on their campaign.
“Other residents have called us and said I’ve seen your signs, which is really cool and they want to know how we did it because they want to do the same,” said Anderson. “When you see so many people who paid $20 for the signs, that is incredible, that is real buy-in. It’s awareness, it’s taking responsibility… I think most people care about their communities, they are just in a hurry, so this campaign is a top of mind campaign, which is why other communities have reached out to us to really look at us and copy our design.”
To get involved or to get more information email: [email protected].
