Prince Edward Island was great – we loved the towns, the countryside, the beaches, and the city. We even had fantastic weather – the day after I left I guess the skies opened and they had rain, hail, and funnel clouds – glad I missed that.
They did have one interesting idiosyncrasy: their speed limits. We noticed this all over the island. One minute you’d be doing 90kmh in the middle of the countryside (makes sense), and then suddenly, with no real logic behind it, the limit would drop to 50kmh for about 3 minutes (no town or village in sight), then pop back up to 100kmh. There was a real sense of whimsy to it.
They’re also big on traffic round-abouts, which I consider very sensible – after 2+ years in the UK, I came to appreciate the efficiency and ease of travel that round-abouts bring. We were a little surprised to find more that one brand-new, absolutely massive round-about on the outskirts of a little village, or at the crossroads of two farm roads in the middle of nowhere – I feel there was a certain optimism to those – an anticipation of great development in the near future.
It all came together on my drive to the ferry on my last day. The speed limit skirting Charlottetown was a sensible 60kmh, until I got near a causeway, when it dropped to 50kmh. Fine, that continued for a good 10 minutes. Then, less than a kilometre from a double round-about in Stratford, in what I would describe as a stretch of retail plazas, it jumped to 100kmh. Did I mention the upcoming round-abouts? The recommended speed limit through them was 30kmh, so we sped up, just to slow down. As soon as I left the 2nd round-about, the limit jumped back to 100kmh (as the twit in the black Ram truck let me know with his horn), stayed at 100kmh for less than 1 kilometre, then dropped to 70kmh for no apparent reason. (less than 1 kilometre)
Do you suppose the road planning commission just drew numbers from a bowl and threw them at a map of PEI?
