Councillors green light public engagement on lowering city speed limits

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by GGG

WHy should people have a choice.

Follow evidence based practice where ever it leads.

This whole polling thing is ridiculous. If there was a poll to raise the speed limit in residential zones to 60. It would probably get an equal objection. 50 is just considered good because it is what we have.

The real work that should be being done is evaluating and calculating the probability of injuries and fatalities before and after this measure based on best available data, evaluate the cost of those fatalities and injuries and compare that to the lost time from people slowing down.

If its a net good its a net good. No consultation should be done, only explanation.

Underrated post.

Sadly, even the majority of healthcare can't follow this principle so I think we're hooped if we expect government to.

[bob-loblaw]

I think driving that slow in a residential area basically encourages distraction. People will check their devices more when they're going slow as opposed to when they are going faster.

I haven't looked at the details, but the stats I'm seeing are just an aggregation. Yeah, speed kills, but it's usually because of grossly excessive speed. How many injuries and deaths are there on non-arterial roads? The vast majority of injuries and property damage are on major roads so perhaps they should focus on that instead.

We have a few dumps of snow and there's 300 accidents in one day. If they want to minimize all these societal costs, they should mandate winter tires, drop the speed limit on arterial roads in the the winter and actually clean the non-arterial roads more frequently.

I'd be fine dropping it to 40 but 30 just seems ridiculous. I realistically can't see people driving 30 kmh in an entire neighborhood - they barely do it playgrounds. Plus, with vehicle technology there's a sensors for everything. With collision detection and other monitoring won't a lot of these problems decrease anyway, almost regardless of speed? Maybe some non self-driving cars have this now, but I would think that GPS and speed limit data can be combined so that cars essentially can't go over the limit.

The city is spending all this money studying this problem and consulting with citizens. Has anyone talked to the insurance industry about this? They probably have all the statistics and actuarial data needed to make an intelligent decision. If reducing speed is going to save so much for society, then tell me my insurance premiums would go down as a result and I'd support it.

[Aleks]

Originally Posted by kermitology

https://visionzeronetwork.org/projec...nd-case-study/

Lowering the speed limits overall allow us to make changes to road design which naturally reduce speed of vehicles. This is a chicken and the egg scenario. We can't retrofit existing infrastructure until one parameter changes, the easiest being speed limits.

My wife is taking a proposal to council in December with Calgary's first entirely vision zero designed community, Rangeview. Interestingly, when they changed the design to be based on Vision Zero based design the economics made the community more profitable.

I'd love to see a more complete CBA regarding the overall spend differences of reducing the speed limits.

I'm really glad you're not my neighbor

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Aleks

I'm really glad you're not my neighbor

What do you mean by that?

[TorqueDog]

This lowering speed limit #### is a waste of everyone's time, frankly.

Originally Posted by Hes

In Garrison Green the city installed a bunch of traffic calming measures. It has for sure helped. Forand Street Leaving the community is essentially a drag race though. We have a very high density of kids out and about here.

I had someone come look at my listed house. One of the reasons they stated for not wanting to make an offer is that there was too many traffic calming measures.. LOL.

We do have too many additional traffic calming measures, and the City of Calgary has an unhealthy obsession with Playground Zones. Our community is already designed in such a way (narrow streets, parking along both sides in many cases) that preclude going faster than 50 for most of it. Look at the recommendations from civil engineers about reducing speeds in residential areas and you'll routinely see guidance to reduce street width as a means of slowing traffic; our community is literally designed with these recommendations taken into account. Compare this with a newer community like Crestmont where you could fit a four-lane road along their main drag and it looks like you could comfortably do 70 through it.

Forand is the main ingress/egress of the community and is a 50 zone until you hit the playground zone past the alley. However, one thing I notice is that the people who tend to really fly down that road are people who live in the community and are leaving to go to work in the morning, particularly when they're leaving the 30 KM/H zone (I live outside of the 30 zone so I get to watch the show as I'm waiting to turn). Maybe forcing people to go slower than they know is a reasonable speed causes them to go faster to make up time elsewhere when the risk of higher fines is reduced. I'm not convinced reducing the entire community's speed limit to something people clearly already see as unreasonable is the right answer. I'd prefer to see continued improvements in pedestrian right-of-ways; the new LED crosswalk signage at Forand near ATCO is bright as hell... provided people would push the friggin' button like they're supposed to.

Personally, I see the bigger problem being the volume of people who gleefully run the stop sign on Peacekeepers Dr @ Forand St, the 'deer crossing' of ATCO employees who think stepping off a grassy boulevard 20 metres from the crosswalk gives them right-of-way, etc. I've spotted way too many near misses from people flying out onto Forand from the Peacekeepers Dr. stop sign.

[chemgear]

LOL, 3 options. Forgot the #### the hell off additional option.

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/city-comm...imit-1.4690346

City councillors are expected to outline the details of a $200,000 public engagement plan Monday that would offer Calgarians an opportunity to have their say on whether or not speed the limit in residential neighbourhoods should be reduced.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

So they’ve decided they’re gonna do it no matter what the public thinks but we get to choose 30 or 40 km/h?

And this BS costs $200k?

As Chris Rock would say, someone is walking around with $198,000 in their pocket.

[#22]

Originally Posted by bob-loblaw

We have a few dumps of snow and there's 300 accidents in one day. If they want to minimize all these societal costs, they should mandate winter tires, drop the speed limit on arterial roads in the the winter and actually clean the non-arterial roads more frequently.

I would like to add:

Mandate a winter driving / skid control course for all new and existing drivers. If you don’t pass? Sorry, you’re taking the bus

[DoubleK]

Save the $200k and go to 40kph.

[Resolute 14]

It makes some logical sense, because if the question is "if we were to chance the speed limit, which do you favour most" and "f off, don't change" is an option, it's going to be a runaway winner and make the exercise pointless.

The problem, of course, is that this is going to be as much of a fait accompli as the bike lane "pilot" was. You're just going to do it no matter what, so don't waste our time pretending otherwise. It's cowardly.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

So they’ve decided they’re gonna do it no matter what the public thinks but we get to choose 30 or 40 km/h?

And this BS costs $200k?

As Chris Rock would say, someone is walking around with $198,000 in their pocket.

No, this "engagement" farce is just $200,000.

Council has already been told that the signage changes and such will cost millions more.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by chemgear

LOL, 3 options. Forgot the #### the hell off additional option.

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/city-comm...imit-1.4690346

City councillors are expected to outline the details of a $200,000 public engagement plan Monday that would offer Calgarians an opportunity to have their say on whether or not speed the limit in residential neighbourhoods should be reduced.

If they had a fourth option, a reduction to 40km/h on residential roads and 50 km/h on collector roads, I could go for that.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Save the $200k and go to 40kph.

Save the $200K and do nothing at all!


The things our Council gets itself occupied these days suggest that they have nothing better to do. Who, other than Farrell has ever had a problem with 50km/h???

[Erick Estrada]

Ward 7 has become the Quebec of Calgary. Stop voting for that nincompoop!

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Ward 7 has become the Quebec of Calgary. Stop voting for that nincompoop!

That's exactly what a Yop Gobbler like you would say. Us Latte Sippers value our distinct society of the inner city

[Torture]

The cost of implementing any specific option is not yet known but the city hopes reducing the number of collisions will actually save money in the long run. The city said around 35,000 collisions occur in Calgary every year, approximately 10,000 of which happen in residential neighbourhoods.

In 2018, collisions cost the Calgary economy $1.19 billion.

A city report also suggests a blanket speed limit of 30 km/h would result in 10 to 20 per cent fewer residential road collisions.

Let's try something...everybody repeat after me: "Hey Google what is 10% of 1.2 billion dollars per year" (Hint, it's 120 million)

While I'm not thrilled with the idea of having to drive 30km/h on residential/collector roads, if it saves lives and $120 million a year (low end), who am I to complain about my right to drive a car as fast as I want to on residential streets?

The things our Council gets itself occupied these days suggest that they have nothing better to do. Who, other than Farrell has ever had a problem with 50km/h???

Maybe one of the 10,000 people involved in collisions on a residential road each year would have an opinion.

Ward 7 has become the Quebec of Calgary. Stop voting for that nincompoop!

I'll vote how I like, thanks.

[burn_this_city]

All the math around this debate is pretty shaky. There is nothing verifiable they can put forward so they use big numbers when the reality is far less. Collisions apparently costs $1.2B, but what percentage of accidents happen on the roads in question?

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

The things our Council gets itself occupied these days suggest that they have nothing better to do. Who, other than Farrell has ever had a problem with 50km/h???

Why won't someone think of all those poor strawmen killed in hypothetical accidents every single day?

[Torture]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

All the math around this debate is pretty shaky. There is nothing verifiable they can put forward so they use big numbers when the reality is far less.

And what then, burn_this_city, would you say the real numbers are? Got a source for that?

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Torture

And what then, burn_this_city, would you say the real numbers are? Got a source for that?

No one has the data, so they resort to emotional appeals around public safety.