Article content
Talk about a sign of frustration.
A little crude and plenty blunt, a citizen-affixed sign now hangs on a hydro pole along a south London residential street, Upper Queen Street, warning drivers to “slow your a– down” with an image of a donkey in place of the expletive. A resident ordered it online and erected it amid concerns over cut-through traffic caused by bus rapid transit work on Wellington Road.
Article content
“If you come here during the day when the roads are clear, people are flying down there,” said the resident, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal from city hall. “I mean, 60 (kilometres an hour), that’s the norm. I’ve seen people go faster.”
Upper Queen has a posted speed limit of 40 km/h, but that hasn’t stopped people from driving 20 km/h over the limit on the fairly straight, wide neighbourhood street, neighbours say.
Construction to widen Wellington for dedicated bus lanes from Wilkins Street to Greenfield Drive has led to motorists seeking parallel routes such as Upper Queen, said Garfield Dales, the city’s division manager of transportation planning.
“To address this, temporary traffic calming measures have been implemented to help manage vehicle speeds, and we are actively monitoring these routes during the construction period,” he wrote in an emailed statement to The London Free Press.
To that end, Dales also points to permanent speed cushions installed on Nixon Avenue, which Upper Queen transitions into, near Southdale Road.
As for the sign itself, any signage placed on city property without its approval is prohibited, city hall says, and is removed based on priority factors such as visibility obstruction or public safety. The donkey sign has been there since September.
The Londoner behind the sign recognizes the city’s efforts to slow people down, including seasonal flex poles in the middle of the road and on the bike lanes, but said more needs to be done in terms of timing traffic lights, and adding more traffic calming.
Of their own blunt sign, they said: “If it causes (drivers) to slow down and look at it, and chuckle a little bit, cool.”
Recommended from Editorial
Share this article in your social network
