Local poll respondents were split on the Town of Newmarket’s plans to begin automated speed enforcement on 14 streets this summer.
The municipality is preparing to install speed cameras within community safety zones in a bid to address speeding, which it says is a top complaint of residents.
The cameras will begin operation in June, with warnings sent out to speeders before ticketed enforcement begins in July. The municipality has already started placing signs warning of the cameras to come.
NewmarketToday.ca polled 1,136 NewmarketToday.ca readers and asked the question: Do you support Newmarket's automated speed enforcement program?
The poll ran from March 27 to April 10. Of the 1,136 votes, we can determine that 935 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult NewmarketToday.ca readers who are located in Newmarket. The margin of error — which measures sample variability — is +/- 2.89%, 19 times out of 20.
NewmarketToday.ca uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
Support and opposition to the proposal is fairly even, according to the poll. In total, 440 local respondents voted in favour of it, while 462 voted against it and 33 indicated indifference.
The Town of Newmarket also has an ongoing survey about the program running to April 12.
The 50-50 split is consistent with Newmarket’s own polling, Newmarket Mayor John Taylor said. But he added there is much more support, about 80-20 in their polling, for speeding enforcement in school zones in general. The difference seems to be in people’s preference for more police enforcement, he said.
“My feeling on that is we need to do more education,” Taylor said, adding that speed cameras are “our most significant opportunity to take meaningful action.”
Taylor said the technology can be helpful to enforcement.
“We can have these cameras do the job of police officers, which frankly is far more tax efficient for the taxpayer,” Taylor said. “It frees up police officers and our courts significantly.”
Residents commenting on Newmarket’s social media posts have remained divided.
“Why ask for feedback if you are already going ahead with it? This looks like more of a cash grab,” one resident said.
The town has said the funds received through the program will go back to paying its cost, with any excess going toward other safe street initiatives. The town has not yet disclosed the cost of the program but has said it will as part of the 2025 budget.
Taylor said the program is costly. But if there are excess funds, he said it is not necessarily a bad thing that it comes from speeders.
“It will be used to do an even better job and provide an even safer community to the residents of Newmarket,” he said, adding that if the tickets lead to community enhancement, “I’d rather have those people who insist on speeding through school zones pay for that than all the rest of the taxpayers.”
Other residents have expressed more support for the idea, with speeding a common issue brought up by residents to the council via petition.
“The speeding past a school is disgusting, and I’m happy to see that we can now slow them down,” one resident said on a town social media post.
Taylor said the town is adequately warning everybody about the change coming.
“I would love to have no excess revenue from this,” he said. “I would love to see everybody slow down and go the speed limit in front of schools. If you do that, you won’t get a ticket.”
