The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

I firmly believe more people should go for a walk in Clarenville.   Walking gives you a much better perspective on our surroundings and it gives you time to think about – on one hand - just how lucky we are to live here – and on the other hand – some of the challenges we face. Take, for example the Harbour walk around the inner Shoal Harbour.  Each evening, this trail is full of walkers enjoying the views – the ocean, the occasional eagle, ducks etc.  This trail was not an accident.   Some visionary people saw the potential for this trail walk and about 10 years ago through a well-organized effort, they turned their vision into the reality that we enjoy today.  Those are the things and the people that make our town a very livable community – and we are lucky for that. But as you walk, you will also notice a very worrisome trend that is not being addressed.   Traffic volumes have jumped exponentially in the past decade and most worrisomely, the average speed of traffic h

CBC Picture In the trade they are called Vehicle Management Systems.  I call them a good idea. The Town of Gander has just purchased this sign.  It’s portable and it can serve a number of roles including making people aware of just how fast they are driving (it has a speed radar). It's particularly good for those drivers who insist in driving through our town at rate of speed that shows little regard for live (you, me and our children) and Newton’s laws of physics. I first saw these signs used by the RCMP’s highway patrol in Halifax a few years ago and I am told by good authority (my Mountie brother-in-law) that they work. They aren’t cheap at $19,000, but the fact that they work so well as a proactive driver education tool, coupled with the fact that they can serve many purposes including communicating key traffic or event messages (Targa Day: ROAD CLOSED, Clarenville Day: FIREWORKS TONIGHT, or CONGRATULATIONS CARIBOUS) means that such a sign could be a good investm