Councillors green light public engagement on lowering city speed limits

[Torture]

Originally Posted by chemgear

I was pointing out that the numbers that the City are putting out are totally different (out by a full order of magnitude) now that they're trying to shove this limit reduction down your throats.

I think your confusion was your random selection of "googling 10%" of their suddenly massive claim of $1.2 billion. Nobody else was doing that.

But that's what I'm saying. It's the same numbers and the same order of magnitude. They're not putting out totally different numbers by a full order of magnitude, they're just saying it in a different way. Dispute the numbers and how they got to them if you want but the City is being consistent.

• The first article said all accidents in the City cost a total of 1.2 billion and reducing speed limits would save 10%-20%. 10% of 1.2 billion is 0.12 billion or 120 million.
• The second article said that the City would save 120 million by reducing speed limits.

Get it? I didn't pull 10% out of the air, it was in the article. 120 million is the same number as 0.12 billion, which is a 10% savings from 1.2 billion.

Both articles have the City saying the same number and the same order of magnitude, they're just saying it in a different way.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by GGG

The Montana data that showed a fatality increase was not statically significant

I guess I overstated my stance.

But my intent was more to refute the frequently unfounded claims that lower speed limits = safer roads. Its taken for granted as true without any burden of proof, and what limited data there is seems to swing against that premise.

[This is opinion] I think people will generally drive at the speed they feel comfortable driving at on a given road, and if you want slower roads where incidents are lower impact, you should build narrower roads with more lines and cross walks that encourage slower driving. Artificially lowering the speed of roads with speed limits that don't match the flow of traffic just feels unsafe to me. I also think if want safer pedestrians, you should start be widening side walks where you have narrowed the road, and making well defined crosswalks. All of that should come long before this lunacy.

[Swarly]

Originally Posted by Torture

But that's what I'm saying. It's the same numbers and the same order of magnitude. They're not putting out totally different numbers by a full order of magnitude, they're just saying it in a different way. Dispute the numbers and how they got to them if you want but the City is being consistent.

• The first article said all accidents in the City cost a total of 1.2 billion and reducing speed limits would save 10%-20%. 10% of 1.2 billion is 0.12 billion or 120 million.
• The second article said that the City would save 120 million by reducing speed limits.

Get it? I didn't pull 10% out of the air, it was in the article. 120 million is the same number as 0.12 billion, which is a 10% savings from 1.2 billion.

Both articles have the City saying the same number and the same order of magnitude, they're just saying it in a different way.

What second article are you talking about? if it is this one it says nothing about saving 120M by doing this. All it states is pedestrian-car accidents cost society 120M per year.

Then they wanted to reduce speed limits to help cut this cost to society down. But it was pointed out that most of these pedestrian-car collisions do not occur on the roads they are talking about changing speed limits on, essentially doing nothing to solve the problem they set out to fix. Since then they realized no one wanted to spend millions to put an almost non-existent dent in that 120M/year. So they moved their talking point to all accidents, all collisions city wide, including pedestrian-car, car-car, car-property. Now that gives us a nice big number to work with... 1.19B/year. Wow, such big number, who can argue with that. Then they took that number, distributed the cost evenly across all accidents (wtf, not math so good) and said a 10% reduction in accidents will save us 120M/year . Now it seems worth it to spend millions to save 120M/year.

The fact that both numbers end up being 120M/year is a coincidence, they were given as two very different sets of data. 120M/year is the cost of pedestrian-car collisions. 120M/year also happens to be 10% of the 1.19B that all types of collisions cost per year. You seem to be the only one thinking they are saying the same number in a different way. It is most certainly a moving of the goal posts once the first plea to 'think of the children' failed the first time.

[CliffFletcher]

This is transparent case of civic activists making up their mind on an initiative and then using dubious statistics and a pantomime of public consultation to give them license to do what they already decided to do.

I'd be onboard with a 40k limit on residential streets, alongside revisiting playground zones and removing the half of them that never actually have kids playing nearby.

[Locke]

So if they bump all the limits down to 30 do they then eliminate all Playground Zones and the resulting boost in fines if caught speeding within them?

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Locke

So if they bump all the limits down to 30 do they then eliminate all Playground Zones and the resulting boost in fines if caught speeding within them?

That is a great question.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

That is a great question.

That I think we all know the answer to.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

That I think we all know the answer to.

Which should point us to the true motivation. And it has nothing to do with 'thinking about the children.'

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by Locke

So if they bump all the limits down to 30 do they then eliminate all Playground Zones and the resulting boost in fines if caught speeding within them?

They’d have to.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

They’d have to.

One would think, but we're not exactly dealing with an over-abundance of common sense here.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Locke

So if they bump all the limits down to 30 do they then eliminate all Playground Zones and the resulting boost in fines if caught speeding within them?

Hold my beer...20 km/h playground zones!

[Locke]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Hold my beer...20 km/h playground zones!

Or just be transparently corrupt and call it a 29 km/h limit in Playground Zones with an additional fine because there might be an open field within range of an ICBM.

Ultimately though it seems fairly clear that lowering speed limits 'for safety' is whole load of garbage.

There might be off-chance ancillary safety benefits, but thats hardly the primary concern.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Fines. Revenue from fines is free, effortless and so tempting...

Yep. There will be unmarked vehicles in all neighborhoods ringing up the $$$. Council will never bring this up but there's little doubt the ability to increase revenues is a factor in what's driving this. This has the potential to be a massive windfall for the city and it's being driven by a councilor that has contempt for automobiles who can spin this in several directions to get other councilors to agree.

[Ducay]

What a dumb idea. 40 in Mount Royal is bad enough

[Mr.Coffee]

Agree this is horrendous policy. Just terrible. If people are getting killed at current speed limits in residential areas...... natural selection?

[OmegaV4]

Originally Posted by Locke

So if they bump all the limits down to 30 do they then eliminate all Playground Zones and the resulting boost in fines if caught speeding within them?

If I had to guess, I would say probably not. We have 30KM/H in Airdrie residential areas, and playground zones still exist.

[getbak]

Lost in everything that happened last week was the news that Council voted to cancel the public engagement for the speed limit reduction and shift that money towards the DOAP Team.

Now they can just vote on reducing the speed limit with no public input. I guess all the people complaining about this got what they wanted. Congratulations, enjoy driving 30 km/h everywhere you go.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Ducay

What a dumb idea. 40 in Mount Royal is bad enough

It is? I'm against he blanket speed limits because I feel it lets the city off designing safer streets, but there's only like 2 streets in Mount Royal where being throttled to 40 should feel burdensome and those are problem streets in the first place.



It's a problem (and something of a justification for lower limits) if a neighborhood where throttling to 30 isn't actually needed is considered a neighborhood where the current limit is too slow.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by getbak

Lost in everything that happened last week was the news that Council voted to cancel the public engagement for the speed limit reduction and shift that money towards the DOAP Team.

Now they can just vote on reducing the speed limit with no public input. I guess all the people complaining about this got what they wanted. Congratulations, enjoy driving 30 km/h everywhere you go.

Yeah, it was a pretty sweet move to bypass any input and just #### people in the ass with it.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Yeah, it was a pretty sweet move to bypass any input and just #### people in the ass with it.

I thought that was the City Council Mantra? Isnt that whats emblazoned right under the coat of arms?

"Ignoring What You Want and ####ing you in the Ass with It!"

Only in Latin.