Councillors green light public engagement on lowering city speed limits

[Bunk]

To me, it’s the wide sweeping residential collectors which are the speeding and public safety problem (red) not the narrower (often) dead end truly local roads (yellow). I dunno.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by accord1999

I think delays for passengers should be accounted for in the same manner that if a bus is slower to go through one stop to another, the delay affects all of its passengers that were on the bus at that time.

But then that’s kind of a pointless exercise isn’t it? So collectively the time we spend on the road goes up by millions of hours... but who cares? It will only matter to individuals and to individuals what will matter is their by trip time and (maybe) their yearly addition time. But it will barely be felt at all.

If we want to talk about collectively, it has to be per vehicle, because vehicles on the road for longer actually has a relevant impact to the world, not just the individual.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Bunk

To me, it’s the wide sweeping residential collectors which are the speeding and public safety problem (red) not the narrower (often) dead end truly local roads (yellow). I dunno.

I'm curious why this is a safety issue? is there a rash of incidents happening on these roads? would decreasing the speed reduce the number of incidents? or does it just feel like we could be doing more and it feels like reducing speed would be effective, and it feels like lowering unposted speed limits will lower the median speed?

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by accord1999

What's wrong with user pay? The original argument was about subsidies of infrastructure, roads have low subsidies because car users are paying most of the costs of driving directly. Even for a successful transit system (by North American standards), Calgary transit users pay less than 50% of the cost of operating transit and essentially 0% of the capital costs.

What is the mechanism by which drivers are 'directly paying for most of the costs' of roads' and transit users, which is pay-to-use, aren't?

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

What is the mechanism by which drivers are 'directly paying for most of the costs' of roads' and transit users, which is pay-to-use, aren't?

$0.13/liter gas tax that is theoretically for road funding?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

What is the mechanism by which drivers are 'directly paying for most of the costs' of roads' and transit users, which is pay-to-use, aren't?

This refers to the conversation with Bill Bumface about the costs of owning and operating the car. Those costs fall directly upon the car user. The fares paid by transit user in Calgary pays less than half the costs to operate the buses and trains and virtually none of their capital costs, which is borne by various levels of governments.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Bunk

No - collectors proposed to stay at 50

Here's the ward by ward map of the proposal

https://www.calgary.ca/transportatio...ed-limits.html

If it's just the general residential roads at 40, or even 30, that's not an issue in my mind at all. As long as the collectors stay 50 for now, and the foreseeable future.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by #-3

I'm curious why this is a safety issue? is there a rash of incidents happening on these roads? would decreasing the speed reduce the number of incidents? or does it just feel like we could be doing more and it feels like reducing speed would be effective, and it feels like lowering unposted speed limits will lower the median speed?

The incident maps - show car-pedestrian collisions are concentrated on collectors (as well as arterials). Outcomes are also most severe here.

Here:

https://livewirecalgary.com/2019/11/...an-collisions/

The conflicts in residential areas aren’t happening on residential roads; they’re happening on the collector routes connecting them

Reducing speed limits is one tactic, but tactics using design that results in naturally slower speed is ultimately most effective.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by accord1999

What's wrong with user pay? The original argument was about subsidies of infrastructure, roads have low subsidies because car users are paying most of the costs of driving directly. Even for a successful transit system (by North American standards), Calgary transit users pay less than 50% of the cost of operating transit and essentially 0% of the capital costs.

Not as much as the costs of being forced to live near where you work, and work near you live, or hope that you have direct transit routes or are willing to waste time waiting and transferring.

For all the idyllic photos of present-day European city cores, none of that would exist if Europeans weren't overwhelmingly traveling by car, for trips that don't need to be in the core.

Transit doesn’t subsidize just transit users. It reduces the need to spend on additional lanes during peek hours. Transit subsides benefit the car driver just as much as the transit user. Ideally you would charge a density toll for driving during rush hour full cost for transit and lower other taxes and let the market decide what was efficient.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Bunk

No - collectors proposed to stay at 50

Here's the ward by ward map of the proposal

https://www.calgary.ca/transportatio...ed-limits.html

This strikes me as changing the speed limits to say they’re doing something, but it’s utterly meaningless. I took a look through a couple areas that I’m most familiar with, and maybe the full 100% of the roads that would be lowered are already seeing drivers at those speeds anyway. Why are they wasting the time and resources on this, when there are so many other pressing issues?

(OMG, I agree with Farkas!)

[Torture]

Originally Posted by Bunk

No - collectors proposed to stay at 50

Here's the ward by ward map of the proposal

https://www.calgary.ca/transportatio...ed-limits.html

Thanks for posting this Bunk. Looking at my ward, my commute literally does not even change. Maybe a block if I don't go out by the back alley. It's really only the true residential roads that are changing. Fully in favour of this and actually wish they would go further, but nobody should be opposed, at least in my ward.

Actually, most of the folks on my street complain that people rip through between Centre and 4th St NW so there should be some happy folks with kids in my part of town.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Slava

This strikes me as changing the speed limits to say they’re doing something, but it’s utterly meaningless. I took a look through a couple areas that I’m most familiar with, and maybe the full 100% of the roads that would be lowered are already seeing drivers at those speeds anyway. Why are they wasting the time and resources on this, when there are so many other pressing issues?

(OMG, I agree with Farkas!)

Not sure what the $200k bought us, the way this had been floated it sounded like almost every road that was previously 50 was going to 40 or 30. Now it's basically side streets where the average speed is probably between 30 and 40 already.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Not sure what the $200k bought us, the way this had been floated it sounded like almost every road that was previously 50 was going to 40 or 30. Now it's basically side streets where the average speed is probably between 30 and 40 already.

They probably heard too many people complaining about their commutes becoming super long (can't wait an extra 83 seconds apparently) because of the collector roads changing so they backed away on the recommendation.

[burn_this_city]

Good, a reasonable compromise was made.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Bunk

No - collectors proposed to stay at 50

Here's the ward by ward map of the proposal

https://www.calgary.ca/transportatio...ed-limits.html

So, was this just piss-poor reporting and there was no recommendation to lower collectors to 40 and residential roads to 30, or were the recommendations changed?

[Fuzz]

From the previous map, it looked like 4th st NW was slated for 40km/h, and eventually 30. When I think about that happening, I think that is going way to far. It would have just forced traffic over to centre or 10th, making those routes busier, because who is going to drive 30km/h for 7km? I'm sure there are roads all over the city like that one. I think if they had gone with the first plan there would have been mass revolt.

[OMG!WTF!]

We keep really accurate stats on traffic accidents so it will be interesting to see any effect over the next few years.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by getbak

So, was this just piss-poor reporting and there was no recommendation to lower collectors to 40 and residential roads to 30, or were the recommendations changed?

It changed. Previously, collectors were included in the wholesale speed reduction. The City was not decided on whether to lower to 40 KM/H or 30 KM/H right away.

But what's funny is Bunk's link shows that residential roads don't have an issue. Reducing those roads to 40 KM/H accomplishes nothing except appeasing the old people on my community's Facebook group.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

But what's funny is Bunk's link shows that residential roads don't have an issue. Reducing those roads to 40 KM/H accomplishes nothing except appeasing the old people on my community's Facebook group.

Which is exactly my complaint. Change for the sake of change, under the guise of "Won't somebody please think of the children!"

Some roads absolutely need this, but most don't. And the ones that do, a lot of them aren't affected anyway

[puffnstuff]

Using the data on incidents to target the actual trouble spots instead of a blanket city wide response just seems way too logical for any level of government.

Also, after watching the news this morning and Nenshi saying that speeding in the neighborhoods was by far the number 1 concern brought up was...weird. I can probably think of 10 things my neighbors and I, and this board, complain about more.