Speed management: safe streets for all

As the City intensifies, there will be more cars. Now is the time to establish the principle that the cars must adapt to neighbourhood liveability and active transportation, not vice versa. The 30 kph limit is an appropriate way to set expectations, and is cheap. If drivers don’t show respect for the limit and for nearby families, walkers and cyclists, then more intrusive (and costly) road re-design (or enforcement) should follow. When I drive through a neighbourhood, I drive slowly, both out of respect and to enjoy the surroundings. If this approach does not come naturally, it should be engendered.

Lowering the speed limits is a very good idea, but we're going about it backwards. Roads should be designed to enforce themselves. Is this an immediate solution, to a problem that will be properly addressed over the next decade? Me need massive street redesign, or else this won't do anything. People tend to ignore signs and drive what feels comfortable, and what feels comfortable to a driver can make a street hostile for pedestrians and cyclists. Cars are the danger that is preventing a vision zero goal. How are we supposed to slow down cars if we are still making pedestrians yield to cars at multi use trail crossings and bike lanes that disappear at intersections. Cars are made to feel they have free reign to do whatever they want, and it takes more than a speed limit sign to change that culture, and years of conditioning.

While travelling in Portugal a number of years ago we went thru a few small one road towns. They had a stop light in the muddle of town with no crosswalk or intersection. Often it would go red, we'd stop wait a minute or so and it would go green. We figured it out..... if we were a bit faster than the posted 30mph it went red. If we went 29mph it stayed green. There was a sign too that if you ran the red you would get a photo ticket. This is a brilliant way to handle school zones especially, 24/7. A money maker to.

This is a bad idea.
Proper road design will do more to save lives than this proposition. Efforts should be deployed where problems currently exist and where near misses have been reported.
By setting an arbitrary 40/30 km/h limit the city will causes more harm than good. It will simply confirm the commonly held belief in Ontario that limits are irrational and should and are being ignored.
A sign on a post won’t stop a vehicle from hitting a person, only a properly designed road will.
This is the lazy way out.

Lowering the speed limit in residential areas to 30 without properly designing roads to encourage this speed will do little to resolve the speeding problem. Most of the roads that have been designated for a 30 limit are long, straight, wide streets. Such design encourages drivers to drive faster. Unless the city does more to calm traffic such as narrowing the road, adding hazards like speed bumps, drivers will continue to ignore limits and will travel at whatever speed they feel is comfortable.

By setting an arbitrary 30 limit city wide (residential streets) the city causes more harm than good. It reinforces the commonly held belief in Ontario that limits are irrational and should be ignored. It does little to reduce pedestrian deaths as drivers will continue to speed, and enforcement of so many roads will not be feasible for the city, ergo, not resolving the problem.

I’d be supportive of reducing limits if there were real plans presented by the city to actually force drivers to slow down. At the end of the day a piece of metal on a post won’t stop a large SUV from hitting a kid, only a properly designed road will. Anything else is just political posturing and has the value of hot air.

Lowered speed limits without rigorous enforcement won't solve speeding problems on their own, but they are a hugely important step toward resetting community expectations around driver behaviour, and in sending a signal that the car is no longer king. I own and drive a car, but am perfectly comfortable with any measure that will make it less convenient and more costly for me to do so. Why? Because, in exchange for our convenience, we have to put up with the fact that cars pollute, kill, take up valuable space and degrade quality of life in our community. Some of us will always need a car, but continuing to prioritize the convenience of drivers in the planning and building of our communities has proven to be an expensive dead end. Let lowered speed limits be one small but important step towards turning that around.

This is an absurd proposal, that will impact on delivery times, increase gas use, and be of little value. 30km/h is a ridiculous limit other than the block or two around a school during school hours.

There have been no real traffic accidents with pedestrians in most neighbourhoods, so there is limited safety benefit here as well.

Enforce the limits as they are, and you will probably get a better result than any change to speed.

I have lived in our same house in Westvale for 30 years and this change is unnecessary.

Given the UN’s ICGPP report that says we must act on climate change now how does reducing the speed and the length of time a car is running have on the Climate? Has this been considered? If there is more GHG from a longer trip then I think we need to prioritize the climate at the moment.

This is absurdly low speed limit, there is no justification than this.

The limits are already low enough, just enforce what we have, don't criminalize otherwise safe drivers. Your own studies showed it didn't decrease travel speeds in the trial neighbourhoods at 40km/h, so why make them even lower? It's completely useless.

Also, stop the war on the car/drivers!

Are there plans to redevelop all Class 4 and 5 roads with traffic calming measures to lower the design speed? Roads like Hazel St north of Austin Dr are wide and open, encouraging higher speeds.

This is a great idea and should be accompanied by physical changes to local streets. Signs and enforcement only accomplish so much. City standards need to be revised and existing streets need to be retrofitted with traffic calming measures to ensure that people actually drive the new posted limit when the police aren't watching.

Putting up a new speed limit sign will make little difference if the speed is not enforced. In areas where the speed limit is currently 40 many drivers already ignore that limit because it's not enforced. I have never seen someone get a speeding ticket on a neighbourhood street. So if increased enforcement does not come with this initiative what's the point?
Equally big problems include people ignoring stop signs and red lights. Again, no enforcement of these rules so people choose to get away with it.
Instead of putting up new signs a more effective method to slow speed would be to use physical traffic calming installations. But I know signs are cheaper.
Get the police enforcing traffic laws in the neighbourhoods and that may make the problems and risks with speeding cars go away.

This is an excellent initiative but I have a concern with Option B. Only one street in the entire City, William Street, maintains its speed limit of 40km/h. This street has a lot of pedestrian traffic, more so than many residential streets. Children walk along William Street to 2 primary school, pedestrians walk up and down William Street to shop Uptown or cross William while walking about the neighbourhood, cyclists use the street and jogging clubs use the street. Alexandra Park faces on to William Street. The ION train crosses William Street. King Street crosses William Street. Many have voiced concerns about vehicles racing up and down William Street. Please include William Street with every other Class 4 and Class 5 street in the entire City!

The posted speed is irrelevant unless combined with significant enforcement such as photo radar.

I don't think this change should be undertaken without thorough planning for enforcement. It doesn't make sense to expect the already stretched WR police to take this on. Every school will need to be watched closely until people have made the adjustment. How? By whom?