Data shows Calgarians driving slower two years after speed limit change – Calgary | 24CA News
Two years after the City of Calgary lowered the default residential pace restrict to 40km/h, new information reveals that Calgarians are driving barely slower.
The numbers, included in a briefing to metropolis councillors, reveal that noticed speeds on each collector roads and residential streets are down between 0.8 km/h and a pair of.5 km/h.
The briefing famous the discount could sound small, however is a “promising leading indicator of safer outcomes” on Calgary streets.
Tony Churchill, the City of Calgary’s mobility security coordinator, stated the preliminary numbers present drivers are adhering to the pace restrict change.
“It’s in line with what we expected given that we just changed the default speed limit and some of the signage on the collector roads, without doing any traffic calming,” Churchill stated.
This comes after a hotly contested debate in 2021, when Calgary metropolis council voted to decrease the default residential pace restrict from 50km/h to 40km/h.
It had an impact on roughly 3,200 km of residential roadways and 340 km of collector roads, which usually have a yellow line or bus route on them.
The remainder of the 1,300km of collector roads remained at 50 km/h, with posted signage to remind drivers.
According to the briefing, town put in over 5,200 indicators between Feb 1 and May 31, 2021, when the diminished speeds took impact.
Those modifications have been welcomed by the Bridgeland Riverside Community Association (BRCA), in a neighbourhood constantly experiencing fast drivers utilizing the world as a shortcut between Memorial Drive and Edmonton Trail.
“The difference between 50km/h and 40km/h, if you’re going to go through the two-kilometre zone like it is here in Bridgeland, is about 30 seconds longer if you’re doing the speed limit,” BRCA president Alex MacWilliam instructed Global News. “I don’t think it’s a big deal to motorists. It shouldn’t be.”
MacWilliam stated the hope amongst many Bridgeland residents is a pace discount on 9 Street. N.E., a collector street locally, from 50/km to 40km/h resulting from many speeders exiting off Memorial Drive into the neighbourhood.
According to town, it’s acquired as much as 60 requests to assessment the pace restrict on sure residential and collector roads over the past two years.
Fifty-eight of these requests have been to decrease the pace restrict to 40km/h, with two aimed toward growing the pace restrict to 50km/h.
“Creating safe streets and communities should apply equally to all streets,” Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner stated. “That is what we’re hearing from Calgarians; we’re not hearing about a complaint down to 40km/h but we’re hearing those roads at 50km/h didn’t get to 40km/h.”
Churchill stated regardless of the modest reductions, the hope is for a larger impact on collisions particularly in residential areas.
“Even though they’re small kilometer values, when we look at that as a percentage of the operating speed, it’s larger,” Churchill stated. “We expect that to result in an even larger measurable change in collisions.”
However, metropolis officers don’t have that collision information simply but, however a preliminary assessment of that information will likely be included in a Safer Mobility Plan coming to metropolis council later this 12 months.
The briefing stated that information could be required to color a extra sturdy image of the impact of decrease pace limits in Calgary.
City officers stated new design requirements for brand new building and retrofit of current roadways, like curb extensions, may additionally help a discount in pace.
It was famous that work is ongoing to find out if Calgary ought to cut back the default residential pace restrict under 40km/h, however a proposal on that matter isn’t anticipated anytime quickly.
A last analysis of the neighbourhood pace restrict change will likely be offered to metropolis council on the finish of 2024.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
