New West city staff have come back with a report for council, and the update is relatively small when it comes to the topic of changing school zone enforcement hours.

Based on the information provided ahead of Monday’s meeting, there certainly won’t be any changes in time for this year’s back-to-school date of Sept. 5.

The report comes after Coun. Tasha Henderson put forward a motion discussed in February, looking at whether modifications should be made to the current times, which go from 8am to 5pm on school days. Prior to that, New Westminster’s Parent and District Advisory Council formally announced they wanted to see the change in late January. 

One of the suggestions for the new times in New West would go from 7am to 10am—the same range of hours you’d currently find in Burnaby. Burnaby implemented its changes in 2021.

What’s the city’s update?

Staff’s next steps include taking the topic to the Regional Transportation Advisory Committee (RTAC). This is a group made of up of various municipal representatives, as well as folks who have ties to transportation groups—one example includes TransLink. Staff say that while the RTAC thinks this is an important topic that should be discussed, it hasn’t been—at this point—brought up as of recent.

“Staff will continue to request that speed management—including school zone hours—be included on a future RTAC agenda. It is anticipated that this could occur in late 2023,” page 3 of the staff report reads, adding that they’d like to next be able to report back in 2024.

The next scheduled meeting of the RTAC is Sept. 20.

What about implications?

There were some other points from the staff update, including a recommendation for families to use other modes of transportation to get to school, like biking or walking.

On the part of costs, staff said it was too soon to say how much money would need to be earmarked in the event a change in enforcement at school zones were to move ahead.

New West city staff say that in the meantime, they’ll continue to gather information from other municipalities regarding their experiences with modified enforcement hours.

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