City votes to change school, playground zone hours

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Of course kids will be outside at 4:30. I was suggesting that 9:00 is a tad late in the winter.

Personally, I'm not bothered either way. Standardizing the zones is the important part.

On some winter nights 9pm is late, but that is often winter (cold) related. If the weather is nice (for winter in Alberta) then 9 isn't late.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Traffic calming = speed bumps on roadways, making them permanent fixtures.

There is no good reason to have speedbumps on roadways especially in cases like Centre Street.

Not a fan of these changes.

Not speed bumps. They don;t really work anyways.

Some of the most effective traffic calming is extending concrete boulivards from the side walk making the lanes narrower. The narrower lanes naturally slow people down to the desired speeds. The concrete boulavards also provide waiting areas for pedestrians when they are crossing the road.

If you make people feel that the road is narrower they naturally drive slower. This is more effective than school or playground zones which rely on an observent driver. If a driver is observent enough to slow down in a playground zone they were probably observent enough not to hit someonee in the playground zone. Its the drivers that don't pay attention that are causing the risk and playgrounds zones do nothing to deter them.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by RyZ

That's a joke. I part own/operate a large run label/decal manufacturing business and I could produce 50000 of these decals for under $5000. Unless they are paying guys $200/hr to put these up on the signs I don't see how it costs anywhere near $157000 to put these decals up.

These aren't just vinyl bumper stickers here.... there are standard around durability, and reflectivity that have to be met (I believe it's a 3M product).

Labour to drive around the City and change ~2500 signs... what do you think that's worth? More than you think...

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

On some winter nights 9pm is late, but that is often winter (cold) related. If the weather is nice (for winter in Alberta) then 9 isn't late.

Its less to do with weather, and more to do with Sun.

You're telling me your kids are out in the dark in winter, 2 hours after sunset? And playing? What are they playing? Grounders with a side of "oops I ran face first into the mokey bars I couldn't see"?

[GGG]

http://conf.tac-atc.ca/english/resou...dfs/lazic2.pdf

Here is a paper on the results of school zones being implemented in Saskatoon. 85 percentile speed was only reduced to 45km/h. While it was a reduction it still was quite high and was not accomplishing the goals of the zones.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Its less to do with weather, and more to do with Sun.

You're telling me your kids are out in the dark in winter, 2 hours after sunset? And playing? What are they playing? Grounders with a side of "oops I ran face first into the mokey bars I couldn't see"?

Every night, no. But yes my 10yr old and 8yr old are out with the other kids. They play at the park, of build forts in the field behind the park (soccer fields). Hell my daughter has bee out on the ice rink the town puts on the fields till 9 before.

Most parks have ambient light from the street.

Not all parents are helicopter parents.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Originally Posted by Ducay

The change to 1 zone makes sense, given every school has a playground that is used as a park. The 9pm even in winter thing does not. Should have just made it 7:30 to 2hr after dusk.

There is an elementary school close to my house. The school is on 4th St NW and the playground is behind it. There is a school zone directly in front of the school on 4th St and then there are playground zones on 23rd and 24th Avenues and 5th St around the playground itself.

There is another school across the street from this school which has the exact same situation.

[polak]

School zones were fine before this change. 90% of Playground zones in this city are stupid and this just makes it worse.

Ugh.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by GGG

They are spending 600k on signage. This could provide traffic calming that actually reduces traffic speed at two locations. Signage does very little to reduce speed.

Traffic Calming is the worst idea in the history of urban engineering.

Problem - people are cutting across communities because the main routes are ineffective at moving traffic.

Solution - create a series of dead ends and put bumps and stop signs all over the road so that people are constantly breaking and accelerating to maintain the posted speed limit. I should add, on an individual level its not really an issue but happening millions of times each week across the city, this will cause needless additional wear and tear on peoples vehicles and burn addition fuel. The Environmentalists should be pissed.

How about we try an easier solutions like, raising speed limits to a reasonable level, and posting speed minimums. So people move at the same speed, get from point A to point B faster, therefor spending less time on the roads and reducing congestion. This would reduce residential short cuts, and probably as an extension of that reduce people speed passed playgrounds.

[Hockeyguy15]

People blow by me when I slow down in playground/school zones now, is this really going to change that? Nope.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by #-3

Traffic Calming is the worst idea in the history of urban engineering.

Problem - people are cutting across communities because the main routes are ineffective at moving traffic.

Solution - create a series of dead ends and put bumps and stop signs all over the road so that people are constantly breaking and accelerating to maintain the posted speed limit. I should add, on an individual level its not really an issue but happening millions of times each week across the city, this will cause needless additional wear and tear on peoples vehicles and burn addition fuel. The Environmentalists should be pissed.

How about we try an easier solutions like, raising speed limits to a reasonable level, and posting speed minimums. So people move at the same speed, get from point A to point B faster, therefor spending less time on the roads and reducing congestion. This would reduce residential short cuts, and probably as an extension of that reduce people speed passed playgrounds.

Or, how about this, people leave earlier to reach a destination at their desired time, rather than bank on less traffic or the ability to drive like an ####### in order to get there when they expect to.

Everyone who bitches about driving in this city should ride the bus for a month for perspective.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by pgsieve

No problem with this as well. I never understood why we differentiate between playground and school zones. Most schools have playgrounds and most kids are still around the majority of these playgrounds well after 5. I wouldn't be opposed to 24/7 in places where kids are frequent.

In Calgary, Elementary and Junior High Schools have School Zones, High Schools do not. Junior High Schools generally don't have playgrounds.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Or, how about this, people leave earlier to reach a destination at their desired time, rather than bank on less traffic or the ability to drive like an ####### in order to get there when they expect to.

Everyone who bitches about driving in this city should ride the bus for a month for perspective.

That still does not address the problem of bad laws creating a wasteful situation. For me its not just about the time from A to B. Set Safe and Reasonable speed ranges will improve our roads for everyone.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Or, how about this, people leave earlier to reach a destination at their desired time, rather than bank on less traffic or the ability to drive like an ####### in order to get there when they expect to.

Everyone who bitches about driving in this city should ride the bus for a month for perspective.

I hate the mentality that we should just accept ####ty, slow drivers who cause congestion.

[REDVAN]

Airdrie has 30km/h in all residential areas.

It's only a matter of time Calgary does it too.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

I hate the mentality that we should just accept ####ty, slow drivers who cause congestion.

To clarify, I'm not condoning jerkbags who go 20 under on Deerfoot, but the existence of slow drivers doesn't excuse the ####s who blow through playground zones, run reds, weave through traffic at 140, and other "MY TIME IS SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOURS" morons.

In my experience, I see far more of the latter than the former. Possibly even justified in the minds of the afore mentioned #######s because they were caught behind someone slow and couldn't merge out for a whole 2 minutes sometime that week.

[Five-hole]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

To clarify, I'm not condoning jerkbags who go 20 under on Deerfoot, but the existence of slow drivers doesn't excuse the ####s who blow through playground zones, run reds, weave through traffic at 140, and other "MY TIME IS SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOURS" morons.

In my experience, I see far more of the latter than the former. Possibly even justified in the minds of the afore mentioned #######s because they were caught behind someone slow and couldn't merge out for a whole 2 minutes sometime that week.

How does an illogical change to a law with no basis in reality have anything to do with being a ######bag driver?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

Airdrie has 30km/h in all residential areas.

It's only a matter of time Calgary does it too.

It'll be a cold day in hell before we start taking our cues from the vinyl siding capital of the world.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Its less to do with weather, and more to do with Sun.

You're telling me your kids are out in the dark in winter, 2 hours after sunset?

Yes

And playing?

Yes

What are they playing? Grounders with a side of "oops I ran face first into the mokey bars I couldn't see"?

Games? Maybe they are skating on the rink that is set up in the park during the winter? Maybe they are sitting on playground equipment doing nothing but talking? Who knows but there are kids up and outside at those times in the winter and the summer.

But honestly normalizing the two things makes complete sense (especially with the numerous after school activities that run late nowadays). Argue about 9 being too late but it's a heck of a lot better than having to know when the sun went down to know if you can go faster or not. One time frame, all year makes the most sense.

[Regular_John]

Anyone able to confirm if the whole "school days" thing is out as a result of this change? Are we looking at 365 days of 7:30am-9:00pm 30km/h?