The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

4 - "WEEKEND STAR" FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2001 Local residents take matters into their own hands over the past weekend Slow down on Union Avenue, homeowners plea By Chris Hall Weekend Star A small group of Prince Albert residents gathered together last weekend in an attempt take road safe- ty into their own hands. In an effort spearhead- ed by Steven Edwards, the handful of Union Ave. homeowners set up their own version of a speedtrap on their roadway, just north of King St. Making use of a radar speed device and mes- - sage board available to the public through the Durham Regional Police Service and the Scugog RoadWatch committee, the - residents spent most of their day on Saturday set- ting their sights on passing We have a winner. . traffic and observing their speeds. Any motorist travelling over 55 km/h -- the speed limit on that stretch of road is 50 km/h -- had their license plate number scratched down, and the group promised to forward that information along to police officials: The RoadWatch pro- 2 rey, ON « www. greatblueheroncasino.com A500 Slots » 30 Gaming Tahies 'gram encourages anyone witnessing poor or aggres- sive driving behaviour to record pertinent informa- tion on the motorist and the driver and pass it along to police. Authorities will then send a letter to the - vehicle owner, and, if later required, pay a personal visit to the traffic offender. The reasoning behind the effort last weekend, explains Mr. Edwards, is because of the lack of attention municipal, regional and police author- ities have paid to the mat- ter in the past. Mr. Edwards continued to explain that both munic- ipal and regional govern- ments have refused to erect stop signs or speed barriers on the street to better control traffic, and he added that police pres- ence on the roadway is almost non-existent. "People fly down this road, it's only a matter of time before someone is killed," said Mr. Edwards, who has lived on Union Ave. for 21 years now. He notes that road has dips and corners that could potentially cause problems and stresses that there are no ditches - along the southern part of 'the road. : "It's a dangerous stretch of road, it's used as a drag strip," said Mr. Edwards. "Two cars come flying 'along and there's no extra room on the road for peo- ple walking or kids on bikes. We're forced into the ditches." Mr. Edwards says that he'd like to see the ditches filled in and curbs installed. On Monday, during a meeting of Scugog's works committee, township offi- cials noted that they'd like to see work on Union Ave. - - the reconstruction of the roadway, as well as side- walks installed -- to begin as early as next spring. "We just want people to slow down. They drive too fast around here and someone's. going to get killed," said Mr. Edwards. In total, the local home- owners estimated that just over 160 vehicles passed them during their effort. Of those, the group took down 113 license numbers of speeding infractions. That number included 39 vehicles travelling between 56-59 km/h; 59 motorists speeding along between 60 and 70 km/h; 14 vehicles going between 70 to 80 km/h; and a single motorist clocked at 86 km/h in the 50 km/h zone along Union Ave. 'Scugog Trustee Vows to keep Epsom open From Page 1 time we will go with three years and a revision based on actual numbers in the remaining two years of the plan." The new plan calls for four new elementary schools and one new sec- ondary school to be built in the south and six ele- mentary additions in the north along with renova- tions and an addition at the Uxbridge Secondary School site. Students currently enrolled at Epsom P.S. will be split between Greenbank and Prince Albert Schools. Currently the Epsom school is under its Ministry-rated capacity of 86 students. The Epsom school is com- prised of a room building built in the 1960s along with a single- room structure built around 1876. The SWASI plan will now go out for public con- sultation at a number of five-class- - meetings to be held around the affected areas. Dates for the meetings will be announced by the school board in the near future, said Mr. Yeo. "We will set up meet- ings and listen to public input before taking rec- ommendations back to trustees for final draft into policy," Mr. Yeo said. Scugog Trustee Martin Demmers said the SWASI plan will not pass if he has anything to say about it. "It is the will of the par- ents that this beautiful lit- tle school remain and | will fight for that," Mr. Demmers said. When asked if he was concerned that keeping an underused site like Epsom open could cause delays and loss of funding in other areas, Mr. Demmers told The Star, "there is that side to it, but the will of the people is to keep it open and they should have their way."