September 24, 1999

To:Chairman and Members of the Scarborough Community Council

From:Gary H. Welsh, Director, Transportation Services, Works and Emergency Services, District 4

Subject:Community Council Approval of Stop Signs, All Wards

Purpose:

To offer comments on the need to obtain Community Council approval for minor street stop signs.

Funding Sources, Financial Implications and Impact Statement:

Not Applicable.

Recommendations:

That this report be received for the information of Community Council.

Council Reference/Background/History:

At the Community Council meeting of September 14, 1999, it was recommended that Transportation Services report on the possibility of implementing a system that would authorize staff to automatically approve new stop controls whereby a report to Community Council would not be necessary, unless requested by the local Councillors.

Comments and/or Discussion and/or Justification:

It is the current requirement of Transportation Services, as per the proceedural by-law, adopted by City Council is to present a report to Community Council on local issues that require an amendment to the by-law. Following Community Council approval, the issue then goes to Council for approval of the recommendations in the report and finally Council also approves the by-law. Both City Council and the Legal Department require the report to appear before Community Council before establishing a by-law.

We understand Community Council's concern that the minor street stop sign issues receive approval in the vast majority of instances and tend to add a lot of "unnecessary" paperwork to the agenda. In the past, issues such as stop signs on minor streets and minor parking issues would all be included in one report and appear as one item on the agenda. Approximately four years ago, Scarborough Clerk's Department requested that this be changed and that each of these issues be contained in a separate report. The concern of the Clerk's Department was that if one of the issues in this report was deferred to the next meeting, the entire report would have to be brought back for the one issue, while the remainder of the recommendations would proceed to Council with the deletion of the one item. In speaking with our colleagues from the other districts, some indicate that they continue to present their minor traffic issues in one report to Community Council.

Conclusions:

We are recommending that we revert back to the previous system of presenting the minor traffic issues to Community Council in one comprehensive report. To the best of our ability, we will endeavour to prepare a separate report in those instances where we are not confident that the report will be approved by Community Council, thus alleviating the previous concerns of the Clerk's Department.

Contact Name:

Bruce D. Clayton

Supervisor, Traffic Engineering, Works and Emergency Services

Tel: 396-7844

Fax: 396-5681

E-mail: clayton@city.scarborough.on.ca

  Gary H. Welsh

Director

Transportation Services

Works and Emergency Services

District 4

BDC:ca

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