Calgary Speed limits to be standard 30km/hr?

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Younger me would have been pissed at this idea, even if it's only residential streets. As I've gotten older I've certainly mellowed out my feeling about having to get everywhere as fast as possible. It's not worth the stress, and having seen the effects of a person vs car up close through a friend's struggles with recovery from that crash, I can't deny the facts and science behind it. We need to be more careful, and since we aren't doing that, they need to force us.

It's a small step forward in a more gradual shift to safer roads. It's too bad we can't make a better jump (ie. passive speed control in road design) but that costs a lot more money than changing the speed limit on residential streets.

What is the Science you've seen behind it?

the data I've seen suggest we need better crossing controls, better awareness of pedestrian/vehicle right of way, and better enforcement surrounding illegal turns. Those problems are causing the overwhelming majority of incidents, and the ratios carry across injury, non-injury and fatal.
So well I believe that high velocity crashes are more dangerous, I am not convinced their is a causal relations between speed and the number of severe injuries.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

Most residential streets are unsigned and my understanding is that changing the limits wouldn't mean putting up a bunch of new signs. The notice of motion, if you read it, even talks about the need to budget for short and medium term projects that would update residential street designs to reflect the new limit. And Gian-Carlo Carra has talked about the need for a "generational" redesign of residential streets. It's not like the city is going to pronounce new limits and leave it at that.

How is the city supposed to have developers build slower streets if the current legal limit tells the developer to design for 50km/h?

The legal limit of an unsigned road has nothing to do with city of Calgary residential street design. Road width right now is set by fire department requirements. You will need to add signage to every collector road in the city that will still be 50.

My point is that you don’t need to change the legal speed limit. Do all of the traffic calming and design standards you need in key areas you want to reduce speed. This should be done based on accident statistics. No stats have been released on the number of above 30km/h collisions on non collector residential streets. We don’t even know what the prize is here and yet we are willing to spend 150milliom or so in people’s/businesses time each year to do it.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by GGG

The legal limit of an unsigned road has nothing to do with city of Calgary residential street design. Road width right now is set by fire department requirements. You will need to add signage to every collector road in the city that will still be 50.

I was talking to a friend of mine that works in Roads. He said that's about 50 000 signs to make the proposed change. Can't imagine what that costs

[Bigtime]

Keating muses about meeting in the middle and going for 40km/h:


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...ffic-1.4812213

Keating suggests that 30 km/h might be too low if the goal is to change driver behaviour and improve safety.


So he's suggesting switching to 40 km/h.


The behaviour that he'd like to see would be drivers obeying the speed limit, not driving 10 km/h over it.


"Can you do that all at one crack? I'm not positive and so I would like to be able to say 'let's go to 40,'" said Keating.

But even among the council members who have signed on to the motion calling for a 30 km/h limit, 40 km/h isn't enough if the goal is reducing collisions and injuries.


Coun. George Chahal said studies show that if someone is hit by a vehicle driving 30 km/h, their chances of survival are higher than if they're hit by a vehicle travelling at 40 km/h.


Then there's avoiding a confusion factor.


"I think 30 is more in-line with playgrounds and school zones. It's easier to administer than having another tier of speed limits," said Chahal.

[btimbit]

40 seems much more reasonable. I pretty much do that on most of these roads already anyway

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by btimbit

We're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist

This is it in a nutshell. Another one of Druh's pet projects taking up time that could be spent solving problems that actually do exist in this city.

[Nage Waza]

If you own a home and have kids, then yes, this is a big problem. I am all for lowering the speeds around houses.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

If you own a home and have kids, then yes, this is a big problem. I am all for lowering the speeds around houses.

I have both. Lowering the speed limit won't make a crappy and/or distracted driver any better. Hell, a lot of the time it wont even make them slow down. We're focusing on the wrong issue here, speed limits aren't the problem. Road design and poor drivers are.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

If you own a home and have kids, then yes, this is a big problem. I am all for lowering the speeds around houses.

So do I. In fact I can go one step further in that my youngest boy was hit by a car when he was 4 years old. Fortunately he suffered minor head injuries as he was a runner and just darted across a crosswalk when my wife was walking with a group of kids. Fortunately he did not get run over and hit the side of the truck (you could say he T-boned the truck). Lower speed limits would not have made a difference in his case as kids some kids simply are going to put themselves in harms way. The only thing that would have made a difference in regards to my son's incident is crosswalk lights and that goes back to my initial post that speeding isn't the issue as much as that two thin white lines going across the street simply aren't good enough for crosswalks as drivers don't see them until they are right up to it. They should all have at the minimum the large ladder markings and caution signs and most don't and I also feel on any major community artery the crosswalks should have lights. Now the problem is that lights cost the city money and lowering speed limits increases city income so you can see why the city is pushing for lower speed limits instead of making pedestrian crossing safer.

All of that said 40 km/hr is somewhat reasonable if Druh insists on furthering her pet project that's going to cost everyone a lot of money for a problem that doesn't really exist.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

If you own a home and have kids, then yes, this is a big problem. I am all for lowering the speeds around houses.

I like how it's somehow relevant that you not be renting your home, and have kids, for whatever Nage Waza's concerns are to apply to you.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

If you own a home and have kids, then yes, this is a big problem. I am all for lowering the speeds around houses.

You certainly don’t speak for all child rearing homeowners.

[puffnstuff]

We should use this speed limit sign money we seem to have and put flouride back in the water instead.

[Ryan Coke]

So, I saw some stats earlier about the increase in survivability if hit at 30 instead of 50. But what are the numbers if hit at 20, or 10 km/h? I can imagine what they are at 0.

Why is 30 the right number? Why not keep going lower? What’s the rationale for having it as high as 30?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

Why is 30 the right number? Why not keep going lower? What’s the rationale for having it as high as 30?

The survivability rate at 30 is 90 per cent. At 50, it's 10 per cent. And I expect you're into the law of diminishing returns when you go lower than 30. So 30 seems to be the sweet spot.

[Matata]

As long as it doesn't apply to the main arteries I like the idea, no one spends much time on residential roads and making them slower makes residential areas quieter and safer. It's not solving a big problem, but making this change probably means a few kids don't get brained over the coming years.

Originally Posted by btimbit

I have both. Lowering the speed limit won't make a crappy and/or distracted driver any better. Hell, a lot of the time it wont even make them slow down. We're focusing on the wrong issue here, speed limits aren't the problem. Road design and poor drivers are.

Changing the road design of an existing residential road causes massive disruption and costs millions of dollars. "Poor drivers" is a very obtuse problem that difficult to tackle in a meaningful way. Slapping up some new signs is relatively cheap and simple.

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The survivability rate at 30 is 90 per cent. At 50, it's 10 per cent. And I expect you're into the law of diminishing returns when you go lower than 30. So 30 seems to be the sweet spot.

This is implying that people are getting hit at 50km/h and that no braking happens leading up to it which is misleading.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

This is implying that people are getting hit at 50km/h and that no braking happens leading up to it which is misleading.

Good point.

[Royle9]

Fact of the matter is, a large percentage of these pedestrian collisions occur because of a distracted driver.

So whether we changed from 50 down to 30, or from 50 down to 40 the bigger issue remains to be present. Sure I'd agree with being hit at 30 gives you a better chance than that of being hit at 50 however distracted drivers usually are not aware of their speed anyway.

Until I see a significant crack down on distracted driving I feel this is just a waste of time and money.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by #-3

What is the Science you've seen behind it?

the data I've seen suggest we need better crossing controls, better awareness of pedestrian/vehicle right of way, and better enforcement surrounding illegal turns. Those problems are causing the overwhelming majority of incidents, and the ratios carry across injury, non-injury and fatal.
So well I believe that high velocity crashes are more dangerous, I am not convinced their is a causal relations between speed and the number of severe injuries.

This drives me right up the wall. I have a bus-stop about 2 houses down from mine that drops kids off after school and the crossing is marked exclusively by a sloped sidewalk.

Thats it. The sidewalk slopes down to meet the road.

No lines, but kids get dropped off from school at the stop and try and cross a fairly busy road.

They just recently put up one of those folding signs indicating that its actually a crosswalk and motorists should be on the lookout. Wooo.....

I love those flashing signs in the middle of the road when pedestrians want to cross, it gets your attention and solves pretty much all the problems.

Now we just have to teach those useless, feckless pedestrians how to use the damned things. Apparently the seemingly simple task of 'pressing a button' eludes even some of the more sophisticated of pedestrians and they continue to just carelessly run out into the road.

Perhaps we should institute some manner of 'Re-Education.' Perhaps through hard labour.

[Russic]

Maybe I'm odd, but if it saved 1-2 kids over the next 5 years I'd probably argue it was worth the cost and my inconvenience for the 400m of residential road I travel each day.

There are better ways to get drivers to slow down, but implementing those things city-wide would be quite a bit more costly than just changing the limits. Personally my preferred stance would be persistent photo radar everywhere, but I can appreciate I'm on an island when it comes to supporting that. It'd be free (hell it would make us money), and people don't tend to follow rules unless they know they'll get caught.

When it comes to kids, one of the biggest eye-openers for me when I became a parent was how much harder it is to teach them certain things. I foolishly believed lessons on properly crossing roads would be basic stuff, but it's shockingly difficult to teach safety to a something that doesn't understand what death is.