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Oxford plan addresses speed limits

Meaghan McAvoy

The Oxford Planning Commission held a special meeting Tuesday night, discussing an amendment to Oxford's Comprehensive Plan that may call for a crackdown on speeders.

The planning commission unanimously voted to replace objective six, found in the comprehensive plan's transportation section, with a new version containing a few minor amendments that better fit Oxford's needs. The new version of objective six requires heavier enforcement of Oxford's speed limits.

According to the City of Oxford Web site, the comprehensive plan is defined as a 20-year visionary document that includes goals, principles, objectives and prospective strategies for the city.

Community Improvement Corporation Representative Dave Prytherch said he wanted to amend the objective's strategies to not only target entrances into Oxford-like the original objective six-but change the specific wording of the objective so it could be applied to the entire city. Entrances include U.S. Route 27.

The new objective will now use traffic calming devices as a way to ensure safe vehicle speeds, specifically in residential areas.

Brewer said this is the second time the Oxford Planning Commission has met in order to discuss these specific amendments to the comprehensive plan.

Pyrtherch suggested that the wording of objective six be revisited because he thought it was necessary for the comprehensive plan to ensure speed limits are enforced.

During the meeting, city councilor Richard Keebler suggested the possibility that objective six was merely carried over from Oxford's last comprehensive plan, without thought as to how it would impact the latest comprehensive plan.

However, Prytherch protested against removing the objective entirely. He said he wanted the comprehensive plan to continue to include mention of traffic calming, but he wanted it to apply to the entire city.

Prytherch said he was concerned that if the entire issue of speed limits and their enforcement were not pursued in the comprehensive plan, residents will be unhappy.

"For whatever reason, objective six was just about entering the city, but if we delete the whole section, then we cease to talk about traffic calming as an appropriate strategy elsewhere, and it just drops out of the plan," he said.

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Among the other 51 amendments from the comprehensive plan that the Oxford Planning Commission discussed and voted on, in the end, objective six received the unanimous vote of all six members, and will be voted on next by the city council at an undetermined date.