Councillors green light public engagement on lowering city speed limits

[surferguy]

What kind of real improvements would you like to see instead? I feel like this is a real improvement, should I feel bad about this?

[TorqueDog]

We could have improved pedestrian crossing visibility and signage, for one. Those bright-ass LEDs on the new signs get your attention way more and are closer to eye-level than the old overheads. Better traffic signage; I've put in a call to 311 a few times now about a stop sign in our neighbourhood that people keep overshooting because its visibility is obscured due to its placement. I even had a guy from the Roads dept. call and talk to me about it, agree that it was a problem because "you don't see it until you're basically on top of it" and then the City did nothing about it.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

We could have improved pedestrian crossing visibility and signage, for one. Those bright-ass LEDs on the new signs get your attention way more and are closer to eye-level than the old overheads. Better traffic signage; I've put in a call to 311 a few times now about a stop sign in our neighbourhood that people keep overshooting because its visibility is obscured due to its placement. I even had a guy from the Roads dept. call and talk to me about it, agree that it was a problem because "you don't see it until you're basically on top of it" and then the City did nothing about it.

But do you know the budget for this would have gone directly into any of these things? Do you know they aren't doing these things strictly because they don't have the budget, or could it be because they just don't really care to?

I don't think it's fair to say that everything should have an obvious and immediate impact on everyone's lives. I personally wouldn't care about your stop sign, it won't impact my life, so we shouldn't do it... right?

And maybe this speed limit change prevents something bad, I don't know, it might. Just like your stop sign might. Who cares?

[TorqueDog]

That's probably the saddest and most flaccid defense I've seen to justify this. "Maybe it works or it won't work, who knows, who cares." You could justify damn near anything on that basis.

[PepsiFree]

You sure can. It's a great way to live, honestly.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

Was that you?

I was incredulous watching them speed thru the playground zone. Then dumbfounded when they blew through the four way stop.

Oh and this was a divided boulevard road they were on, basically the main roadway in the community.

These people are my Nemesis.

I dub them 'The 40ers.'

I live on a 50km/h road which has not been affected by these changes, but it is sprinkled with Playground Zones and these people drive me nuts.

They'll come off Deerfoot and immediately reduce speed to 40, despite the limit being 50.

Then they'll get to the first Playground Zone and....you guessed it...40.

Flashing Pedestrian lights? Doesnt matter, didnt see it in time, going 40! Must. Do. 40!

This is the way!

Out of the Playground Zone? Oh yeah, you best bet they're doing 40.

They live their lives from 0 to 40 and back again.

And its not because they're distracted, or tired or texting or daydreaming, they hold 40 steady as a rock.

They're just strugglers.

[GGG]

They are the smart drivers.

Find some research that shows increased collisions at playground zones or school zones. The only things that exist that I have found are the harm reduction from being hit at 30 drops asymptotically and that lowering speed limits in general leads to less fatalities. But the reason for locating in school zones only does not appear to have evidence to support.

They are not struggling, they are driving a speed appropriate for road conditions, site lines and Hazards. It’s only a failure of politics that we have a ridiculous 50/40/30 system for streets with similar design and risk levels.

[TorqueDog]

I would actually be completely on board with a switch to 40 KM/H if it included an elimination of the 30 KM/H playground zones. It would reduce confusion and frustration while increasing compliance.

[Knut]

The road in front of me is now a 40.. which is great. Its a big wide road the wraps around the entirety of a lake. People just fly down it at 70-80 all the time. There are a lot of kids there. People also use it to cut through i think. If you drive quick enough you can cut through Lake Bonavista to get from Anderson to canyon meadows quicker. That is if you dont care about the speed limit or playground zones.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Knut

The road in front of me is now a 40.. which is great. Its a big wide road the wraps around the entirety of a lake. People just fly down it at 70-80 all the time. There are a lot of kids there. People also use it to cut through i think. If you drive quick enough you can cut through Lake Bonavista to get from Anderson to canyon meadows quicker. That is if you dont care about the speed limit or playground zones.

The people who fly down your street doing 70-80 aren’t going to slow down because of the reduced limits. Not without increased enforcement. I doubt the reduced limits will do much at all, as I haven’t seen any evidence law-abiding citizens who were already doing 50 were responsible for loads of collisions and fatalities.

But deterring the kinds of #######s who do 70-80 in residential areas is hard and requires a lot of resources. So we get this sort of grand but ineffectual gesture instead.