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Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty
That's what was said about playground zones. But now we're talking about 30 or 40 km/h everywhere. This will no doubt lead into discussion about highways and main arteries as there are many accidents every day (never mind that speed may not be important).
Regardless, it's not necessarily about what we're losing (although to some it is), it's about what we're not gaining.
We should be a progressive city based on science, or at the very least, logic. Yet here we are bubble wrapping everything even though the bubble wrap probably won't do anything. And now we're walking around wearing uncomfortable bubble wrap.
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There is a lot of evidence that lower speed limits in residential areas do have an impact on average speed (Tony Churchill of the Traffic Safety Group outlined some of that evidence at Council today). He also pointed out the measurable impact, for instance, on average speed the change to harmonizing the playground zones/school zones has had as well.
The biggest impact in residential areas is reducing both the frequency and the severity of crashes, when average speed drops. The best impacts are also had when combining with traffic calming measures that naturally slow people down to a lower speed - matching the design speed with the posted speed. That's a lot of what the motion talks about.
When you have the chance, watch the council archive of today's meeting - Churchill does a great job of explaining the science of all this. He's pretty interesting - he invented those yellow concrete things that are a cheap and easy way to create curb bulb outs - which have had a measurable impact in both reducing speed on corners, but also compliance of cars yielding to pedestrians at crosswalks.