30 is the new 50? Lower speed limits MAY be coming...
 

30 is the new 50: Lower urban speed limits creeping up on B.C. drivers


Victoria may be first, but Vancouver wants to be next.

Victoria city council voted unanimously this summer to reduce the speed limit to 40 kilometres per hour from 50 km/h on downtown streets and Vancouver should follow suit, said Dr. John Carsley, a preventive medicine specialist at Vancouver Coastal Health who said he's working with Vancouver on a plan to slow drivers to 40 or 30 km/h. He and other lower-limit proponents say the move will reduce accidents, injuries, congestion and greenhouse gases.

But one opponent calls the plans an "agenda to frustrate motorists" and a recipe for congestion disaster.

After Victoria became the first city to drop the maximum limit from the long-standing provincewide norm of 50 km/h for urban areas, Carsley called Vancouver's city manager, Penny Ballem.

"I said, 'We have to get on this soon,' and she agreed," he said.

Ballem didn't return a request for comment.

"There has been no recent movement" on lowering street speeds, said city spokeswoman Sara Couper in an email.

Carsley said there are two ways to implement lower urban speeds, as is the trend in European cities and some U.S. centres.

One is to drop the limit to 30 km/h on residential side streets and in the downtown core.

The other is to reduce top speeds on major thoroughfares such as Granville or Hastings streets or Broadway to 40 km/h, a suggestion he admitted would be "hard to introduce."

"It would seem incredibly slow at first because we're used to going 50. Drivers would get used to the slower speed," he said.

Carsley said reducing speeds to 30 km/h on side streets in Vancouver wouldn't be an effective option because most traffic is already naturally slowed by congestion and narrow lanes.

Most cities post 30 km/h limits in school and playground zones, and Vancouver also posts "maximum 30 km/h" signs along bike routes not separated by traffic barriers, including the Off-Broadway, Heather and Cypress routes.

That was a stated goal of its 2040 Transportation Plan adopted in 2012, to "maintain and enforce 30 km/h speed limits on bike routes and greenways," based on a 2009 recommendation.

And, at the request of Vancouver police looking for a way to prevent pedestrian accidents on the Downtown Eastside, Vancouver dropped the limit to 30 km/h on six blocks of East Hastings Street, from Abbott to Jackson streets.

Carsley said it makes more sense to reduce the speed to 40 km/h on major roads because a "significant proportion of pedestrian injuries happen at intersections on arterial roads."

"We would like to explore for Vancouver as part of our road safety strategy a lower default limit" for across the city and other communities in B.C. But that requires a change in provincial law. A transportation ministry spokesman said setting and posting limits that differ from the default limit within communities is up to municipalities.

A proposal for a province wide drop in the default speed to 40 km/h from 50 km/h was voted down at last September's Union of B.C. Municipalities convention. At the time, Vancouver councillor Kerry Jang said reducing the limit was unnecessary in a large urban centre such as Vancouver because it has short blocks. He also said slowing traffic would slow commerce. Carsley and Dr. Paul Martiquet, medical health officer for rural communities in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, including the Sunshine Coast, said dropping the limit will drastically reduce injuries and fatalities.

Martiquet advocates a maximum speed of 30 km/h on winding roads in rural areas to improve safety, reduce the likelihood of striking wildlife and reduce gas mileage, "so there's a green element to it."

"It promotes people feeling safer," he said. "They feel like they can use the roads without the fear of being run over.

"It's a no-brainer," he said, noting the Sunshine Coast Regional District is considering a 30 km/h limit on some of its roads as a pilot project and all councillors are on board.

But he noted a poll conducted by the Coast Reporter showed most respondents opposed the idea.

He and Carsley said medical research shows a clear link between safer roads and lower speeds.

"You have an 80-per-cent chance of surviving an accident where the car is travelling 30 km/h and you have an 80-per-cent chance of not surviving an accident where the car is travelling 50 km/h," Carsley said.

The chance of a collision increases at higher speeds, too.

ICBC on its website says a car travelling 30 km/h takes 18 metres to stop, while a car going 50 km/h takes 37 metres to stop.

Carsley also said traffic flow won't slow considerably because "traffic doesn't move that much faster at the faster speed (limit) because of congestion and stopping for lights."

He said a Copenhagen study showed smoother flowing traffic with cars travelling at slower speeds because slower-moving vehicles can travel safely with less space between them.

And he said the time savings to drive across Vancouver from Boundary Road to Denman Street on Hastings Street, for instance, would be minimal.

The 8.5-km trip would take just under 13 minutes at 40 km/h and just over 10 minutes at 50 km/h, a 25-per-cent difference.

Ian Tootill of Safety by Education not Speed Enforcement, or SENSE B.C., lambasted the plan, calling it an "agenda to frustrate motorists."

Tootill said "the unintended effect would be to increase congestion by everyone, including those in the business of moving goods, services and people."

Personally in the downtown core I don't see this as much of an issue. If i'm going 50 downtown, it's too fast. Too much shit going on unless it's 5am.

i live in north burnaby, and they have dropped the speed limit on residential streets to 40km/h. because i seem to be the few who actually follow that speed limit, i get all the usual crap from tailgating to being passed on the left. how safe is that?

I've noticed the same thing in North Burnaby. Lots of 40 km/h signs on blocks where there are kids it seems. People still don't know how to use roundabouts though.

Counter productive. Impatence drivers will still go over the limit as they have a "i dont give a fuck" attitude.

I do like it to try prevent drivers to look out for children x crossing. To many stories of drivers hitting kids not to at least take a look at this new proposal

We have a winner!

Traffic speed should result naturally from the way streets are designed.
Arbitrarily and artificially set speed limits are the wrong way. If you want to slow down cars, design slower streets.

Doesn't driving slow increase greenhouse gases since most engines aren't running full efficiency at that speed?

Downtown is one of the few places I enjoy cruising slow anyways. Like hud91GT said, too much stuff happening everywhere. Besides, I need to be able to check out all that sweet booty everywhere.

A few years ago, I remember reading an article where come city engineer / traffic light designer mentioned that the target speed for driving in DT is around 40km/h. The traffic lights are timed such that if you are driving at 40km/h and you cruise through a green light, all other lights are probably going to be green when you are approaching the intersection. I don't even go to DT every week, but whenever I am there, this 40km/h rule seems to work quite well with the traffic lights.

From my personal experience, I would also say that even in our current state, traffic in DT is already generally slow enough to be 40km/h or less. Unless it is some late evening / super early morning hours, you can't really drive much more than 40km/h anyway because of all sorts of existing reasons (traffic, timing of lights, etc.).

They recently (beginning of summer) changed Shaughnessy street in Downtown Poco, once you come under the bridge all the way to shell on Pitt River Rd is 30km/h zone

I wonder if he is talking but being in the car that is involved in an accident at those speeds or being hit by a car travelling at those speeds?
I'd hate to imagine only an 80% survival rate at 30 km/h and only a 20% survival rate at 50 km/h if you were in the car. :eek:

This is Dr. John Carsley.
http://spph.ubc.ca/files/2014/06/cro...ke-selfie1.jpg

Explains everything.

I already drive behind people that go 30-40......................

Does that mean they're going to go at 20 now? :heckno:

The information this article speaks about Victoria's speed limits changes is misleading

Victoria only reduced the speed limits from 50km/h to 40km/h on a few select streets, it DID NOT change the default limit in the entire city to 40km/h as the article seems to want to lead people to believe.

A few months ago, Victoria being the self-centric hippie villiage that it is pushed the provincial government to change the default limit for the entire province to 40km/h so they wouldn't have to pay for speed limit signage changes.

I'm happy the province gave Victoria the big middle finger for their stupid idea.

I drive a commercial vehicle in downtown Victoria.

I chuckle when proponents suggest that lowering the limits will reduce greenhouse gases and congestion while improving gas mileage. They even admit that during a test that the time to travel from Boundary to Denman on Hastings will take 13 minutes instead of 10 minutes.

That is 3 more minutes driving or idling while increasing fuel usage, congestion and greenhouse gases. Any advantages in safety will likely be offset by impatient drivers taking even more risks on the roads to make up time (like running red lights and not yielding for pedestrians).

As if frustrated drivers trying to pass slower drivers dangerously is safer than just keeping the speed limit the same or raising it..


Honestly, some of the decisions coming from our elected officials are so unrealistic and out to lunch that I'm starting to wonder if they are doing it on purpose to frustrate us. In terms of useful answers to relevant problems, politicians and decision makers alike in this country are as efficient as the giant computer in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This is frustrating for me. I regularly drive 30km/h to 40km/h speeds in downtown anyway but if we reduce the speed limit this just gives pedestrians a bigger mentality to jaywalk or cross the street when it's a waay stale flashing hand sign at the interesction.

And everyone will just speed anyways.

don't need to make speed reduction in downtown, it is naturally done that way ie. rushhour, accidents, ppl cruising slow to check out hotties in the summer time, road closures/redirections, ppl parallel parking, cyclists and jaywalkers

This!

When can you actually drive 50kmph or close to 50kmph in or around downtown vancouver? Sometimes the cyclists go faster than auto drivers..

Which streets?

As if people driving in those areas arnt alteady doing those speeds. They couldn't go any faster if they wanted to. Yet making an official transition of speed area will only cause people to drive even slower.
This is a great way to bring in driverless cars. Not in the merits of technology but by making it so painfully boring to drive that people would rather let robot drive.

We can't drive that fast downtown - but living and working downtown I see shit all the time. Idiots running the left/right turn signals, nearly mowing down pedestrians. I always find it necessary to wait until the signal turns off, shoulder check 180, then walk. If I make eye contact with them well after the signal is off, it is fair game for a swift kick to the quarter panel. I've seen about half a dozen near misses with peds and drivers just being clueless.

Better to "remind" folks that they should be slowing down in dense population areas, and ticket them more easily