St. John’s Councillor Jamie Korab went to bat for his worried Waterford Bridge Road constituents yesterday.

But his passionate advocacy did not sit well with council colleague Ron Ellsworth.

Speeding has long been a problem on the narrow and winding residential route, leading to near misses, and one crash that took out a “Slow Down” sign.

But the recent, albeit temporary addition of highway traffic from the Pitts Memorial detour, including big rigs, was the last straw for many.

And yesterday, Korab relayed that message to council, asking them to direct staff to study the road’s status in the fall.

Problem is, noted Ellsworth, there’s already a list of streets in the que.

“For us to play politics here and expedite one over the other…I think if we are going to do that, I would like to know from staff which projects that are already on the list, will not be done this year because we are moving one up the list,” he said.

Korab shot back, calling Ellsworth’s words “silly.”

“This will never make the list,” he said. “In my seven years on council, I have never asked for any street to be moved up. This will never make any traffic calming list, so it has nothing to do with the policy, it will never be studied. So it’s not playing politics—it’s actually a silly thing to say.”

In the end, council agreed to ask staff about reclassifying a street, and whether that would take them away from other projects.

Waterford Bridge Road is currently classified as an arterial, which doesn’t qualify for traffic calming.