Good afternoon, and welcome to the Peterborough Currents newsletter.

Peterborough city council gave its final approval to the 2025 budget on Monday night. As a result of the budget's passage, the typical property owner will pay about $325 more in property taxes next year in addition to paying a brand new stormwater user fee that will cost about $85 annually. I'll share some updates from Monday's meeting below.

First though, Currents reporter Brett Throop has gone in-depth on one particular decision made during the 2025 budget talks: denying funding to continue the city's multi-year experiment with traffic calming. One public health physician is calling the denial of funding to make three ongoing pilot projects permanent "a blow to road safety."

Let's get to it.

City council denies funding for new traffic calming measures

Temporary speed humps are slowing traffic down on Franklin Drive, according to city staff. (Photo: Will Pearson)

City hall is backing away from using traffic calming measures to make residential streets safer, despite data showing that pilot projects in three neighbourhoods have reduced vehicle speeds and short-cutting traffic.

Traffic calming refers to adding things like speed humps, raised pedestrian crossings and curb extensions to streets to slow traffic and improve safety.

On one west-end street, Cherryhill Road, the “vehicle operating speed” dropped from 54 kilometres per hour to 41 kilometres per hour after the city installed temporary traffic calming measures, according to a city staff report.

City hall has received 130 requests from residents asking for such measures to be added to their streets since 2021.

However, during recent 2025 budget deliberations, councillors voted against spending $1.1 million this year to trial traffic calming measures on more streets and make permanent three pilot projects, which data showed led to lower speeds and fewer drivers using residential streets as short cuts, a city staff report said. Council also denied funding for traffic calming initiatives last year.

High Street resident Laura Hayes would like her neighbourhood's traffic calming measures to be made permanent. (Photo: Brett Throop)

Council's decision is “very disappointing” to High Street resident Laura Hayes, who said she wants recent changes to her street made permanent.

A section of High Street was temporarily converted to one-way in 2023 as part of a traffic calming pilot that also saw a pedestrian pathway installed along a stretch of the busy street that lacks sidewalks.

“It's a lot less busy, a lot less dangerous,” Hayes said.

Patti Watson wants the changes to High Street to remain, too. “One way is the way to go on that street, and it's just safer for everyone, traffic included,” said Watson, a volunteer who walks dogs for seniors in the area.

City councillors voted instead to ask staff to study the feasibility of lowering the speed limit to 40 kilometers per hour city wide.

Dr. Sara Whitehead, a Peterborough-based public health physician who works on traffic safety internationally, said lowering the speed limit is a great idea. But it won’t be effective unless it's accompanied by changes to street design, she said.

For more on the debate over traffic calming and how to make Peterborough’s streets safer, read the full article on our website.

Council gives final approval to 2025 budget

It took almost three months, but the City of Peterborough finally has a budget for 2025. 

Councillors discussed the budget for a final time on Monday, February 3. And while they revisited some items for further debate and voting, they didn't end up making any changes. The final document is identical to the one councillors approved during their January 20 committee meeting, which Currents covered here.

Coun. Andrew Beamer, who chaired the budget meetings, did not ultimately support the budget. He said the 6.72 percent tax increase was too high for his liking, and put the following question to the city's CAO, Jasbir Raina: "Why can't the city do a better job finding efficiencies or more effective ways to run the corporation?"

In response, Raina said he planned to engage "an independent subject matter expert" to review the city's operations. Every department "will be scrutinized and evaluated with a laser-sharp focus on efficiencies," Raina said.

But the review won't happen in time to find cost savings in next year's budget. Raina said he would request funding for his planned review as part of the city's 2026 budget process, and that staff would make recommendations based on the review in early 2027.

Discretionary benefits funding preserved as councillors call for increased social assistance rates

In November, Peterborough Currents reported that council's 6-5 vote to maintain funding for social assistance discretionary benefits might be reversed as Coun. Lesley Parnell was considering changing her vote on the issue. That didn't happen at Monday's meeting. When discretionary benefits came up for a vote, Parnell again voted in favour of maintaining the city's funding at 2024 levels. In addition, Parnell moved that the city send a letter to the Premier, MPP, and other provincial leaders requesting a raise in social assistance rates. Council unanimously approved the idea of sending that letter.

Request for more transit drivers fails again

The local transit union president, Cory MacLeod, made a delegation to councillors during Monday's meeting. In his statements, he echoed comments he made to Currents in November. He said Peterborough's bus frequency needs to increase to attract more riders and that to achieve that frequency boost, the city "must hire more drivers."

A proposal to hire four new bus drivers failed on January 20, so MacLeod offered a compromise: just hire two new drivers, he suggested. Coun. Keith Riel put forward a motion to do just that, but it failed by a margin of 4-7, with only councillors Bierk, Crowley, and Lachica voting with Riel.

Council votes down idea for new shelter

Also at city council on Monday, council rejected a proposal to spend $150,000 to open a new temporary emergency shelter for people who are living unsheltered in the cold this winter.

Councillors Alex Bierk and Keith Riel brought the motion forward. Riel said there was an "absolute need" for another shelter. "We have 66 people that are unhoused and living in tent encampments across the city," he said. "There are currently 23 illegal tent sites identified by our city enforcement division."

"Our shelters are full. So please help us out here, with these people that are living in peril," Riel pleaded.

Before the vote, the city's commissioner of community services told council that it would be a challenge to set up a shelter on such a short timeline. He said $150,000 was "not going to provide much of a service at all" and that finding an operator and location for the shelter would require "difficult conversations."

The motion failed by a margin of 4-7, with only councillors Bierk, Crowley, Lachica, and Riel voting in favour of it.

Last week, Currents published a story that documented how the city's shelters are struggling to accommodate the increasing numbers of people experiencing homelessness locally this winter. Revisit that story here.  

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