No room for humour on Port Moody traffic signs

Port Moody City Council kept a straight face Tuesday afternoon when they rejected the idea of making slow down signs funnier.

Councillor Rob Vagramov presented the idea because he wanted to use humour to slow down drivers, something he says has been used in the U.S.

He said a small town in Florida used a sign that said “honestly now, what’s your hurry? You’re already here,” and for some reason, drivers apparently didn’t go over the speed limit.

So he wondered if humour could be the link that gets drivers to stay below the speed limit.

“The idea was if we were to notice even a small change in people’s behavior, this could end saving the cities around the Lower Mainland millions of dollars in traffic calming infrastructure,” Vagramov said.

But he was surprised by how quickly council said no to the project, and he felt the reasons given were “kind of weird.”

“I know one of the concerns was that this would take up staff time, I mean that would be the case with any initiative that was undertaken by the city,” Vagramov said.

The councillor was also told that the signs would create an increase of traffic into the city, which could increase greenhouse emissions.

“It was an interesting take on it,” Vagramov said. “I mean if that’s the logic we’re using then we certainly shouldn’t be doing any kind of business development or tourism initiatives at all.”

He explained that the intention of the report was not to go ahead with the idea, but just to get staff to get logistics like costs, locations, and even slogans for the signs, before council would make the final decision to go with the idea.

“I was getting a lot of positive feedback so I was kind of surprised to see that our council didn’t take up the idea to at least to get staff to get us costs and options and their thoughts on it,” Vagramov said. “I was surprised that they would can it at such an early stage.”

The councillor offered to limit the number of locations to three initially as it was a pilot project, but he said there was “no appetite” on council for the idea.