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Proposal to reduce municipal speed limit to 40 km/h


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#21 sebberry

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 12:11 PM

And I've lost count of the number of times a bus has passed me when I'm doing the speed limit.

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#22 MarkoJ

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 12:12 PM

Not only that, but to keep some 50kph zones you need bylaw amendments for every road segment, new signage, etc...

I can't imagine how big of a mess this would create. When you consider all the major projects and issues Victoria has to worry about at the moment, lowering the speed limit in other municipalities should be the absolute least of our worries.


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#23 rjag

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 04:08 PM

The difference in time over a 25 K journey between 50 kph and 40 kph is less than 8 minutes. If that's a huge difference in your mind, you seriously need to slow down your life, man!

Me, my primary means of motion is walking at 3 kph on a good day. 25 K would take me a whole working day. Actually a lot longer than that because my left foot generally goes on strike after about a mile or so.

The buses already average 40 kph or less on city streets. Slowing other traffic down a bit wouldn't make much different to that and unless you have repealed the laws of physics it would be safer by definition. Well, if Mr. Scott couldn't repeal the laws of physics I doubt that you can either.

Strangely, back when people were stuck with horses and buggies they still managed to get around and live their lives. You are freaked out that your journeys might take you a couple of minutes extra. May I advise you to slow down and get yourself a life?


Thanks for your feedback. I didnt realise that driving the legal speed limit of 50 is upsetting to you:farmer:. My comments are based on the simple fact that this town is hard enough to get around and most times we are lucky to go above 40 on most roads. Can you share what speed you feel comfortable with and perhaps Ms Gudgeon can help you out. No-one here is demanding a racetrack.

It doesnt matter about journey times, thats not what the concern is here. The concern is we have a small group pushing an unqualified and unreasonable agenda without solid data backing their claim. Not to forget the fact that the sheer cost of changing what they propose is money out of your and my pockets. And what will they accomplish?

And do you honestly believe that because Ms Gudgeon deems it, that everyone will immediately slow to 40 except those wild and scary guys in their rice-rockets who'll push the envelope by going 50???:thumbsup::cop::rtfm::judge:

I'm sorry that your leg gives out after a while, I love walking and spend at least 1-2 hours every day in all weather walking with my dog, but that has nothing to do with a solution being provided for a non-existent problem by a council that have lots of more important issues to deal with that would better serve the taxpayers of this city.

#24 rjag

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 05:01 PM

Here are a few excerpts of the minutes of the recent meeting of the CRD Traffic Safety Commission

Proposal to Reduce Residential Street Speed Limits to 40 km/h
The City of Victoria and Capital Regional District have asked the Commission to consider reducing residential speed limits from 50 to 40 km/h to reduce collisions with pedestrians and cyclists.

According to B.C. Coroner statistics, since January 1, 2006, in Victoria proper, there were no pedestrian or cyclist deaths on residential roads. The limited study did not consider morbidity, which could decrease if the speed is reduced. Reduced speed limits will result in more cyclists and more cyclists could result in less crashes.

Concerns were raised that reducing the speed limit would be expensive to change signage; could cause congestion and road rage and increase greenhouse gases; and may not achieve the desired result.

The Commission will consider the request further at its next meeting. Related articles from the Toronto Star, Winnipeg Free Press and Globe and Mail were distributed.


B.C. Coroners Service report titled Analysis of Pedestrian Deaths 2009-2012 (YTD) that was sent to Commission members via email on December 6, 2012. Of the 221 traffic related pedestrian deaths, speed and alcohol were not big factors. Many of the crashes were at low speed, and involved turning drivers, poor pedestrian visibility, especially when dark, and/or distraction from both drivers and pedestrians.

On a per capita basis, statistics show that someone over 70 years of age will be killed as a pedestrian three times more than someone under the age of 70. Engineering changes to lengthen the walk time may be needed for elderly pedestrians. Ms McLintock offered to see if more mishaps occur close to home or in unfamiliar areas.

The pedestrian had the right-of-way in about two-thirds of the crashes that occurred at intersections. The Commission will target pedestrian vulnerability in new radio clips.



#25 kenjh

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 05:33 PM

I laugh in your general direction...speed limits of 40 K ..are not going to make a big difference.I am seldom at the posted limit ..when looking for traffic problems as in road work .bicycles, pedestrians ..runners ..dog's.. new speed hump's, changes in no left turn corners'..it all takes the joy of driving for the sake of driveing away ....not that we have fun driving any more ... just my opinion

#26 LJ

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 07:49 PM

If this ever comes to pass you will see more accidents not fewer. There will be a much bigger speed diferential between the left lane sheriff at 40KMH and the guy who drives the road everyday going 60KMH, which only increases the risk of accidents.
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#27 eseedhouse

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 08:43 PM

It doesnt matter about journey times, thats not what the concern is here. The concern is we have a small group pushing an unqualified and unreasonable agenda without solid data backing their claim.


Well I really don't wish to be confrontational, but you cite no evidence that the claims you make are true, and they don't seem to me to pass the common sense test. Calling something an "unqualified and unreasonable agenda without solid data" doesn't make it so.

I think we'll agree that speed limits should be as consistent as possible over the region. And that what matters for trip duration is average speed, not peak speed. As in most places the lights are set for a certain speed there is not much point changing the limits willy-nilly unless you also change the light timing.

What you don't mention, especially from my viewpoint as a pedestrian, is that it isn't just cars that get hit, and no just drivers who get hurt. A generally lower speed would, I think, certainly reduce the danger to those of us who have to walk, especially at night. And I think we have some rights to be considered, too.

I think you should perhaps check to find out what the actual state of the evidence is and what expertise these politicians are consulting before claiming that they don't do that.

Now cars today may be better and stop faster, but people haven't been upgraded so far as I know. Most accidents are caused by driving errors if I recall rightly, and it is an inescapable consequence of physics that errors have greater consequences the faster you are going when you make them. They haven't, so far as I know, made pedestrians any more resistant to collisions lately either.

Unless you can find some way remove all the older drivers from the road, one consequence of the baby boom's aging is that there are and will be more older and slower drivers on the road. And since these older drivers also make up the largest group of people who actually vote it doesn't seem likely, for good or ill, that it will be politically possible to take those in their later decades off the road anytime soon.

A consequence of this seems likely to be that the average speed of drivers is going to get slower over the coming years, and if you want to avoid accidents the conventional advice seems to be that you should drive at the speed of the traffic around you as much as you safely can.

Whether there should be laws to enforce slower speeds I cannot say for sure, I would defer to real experts. As you haven't cited any academic qualifications on your part I hope you don't mind if I fail to consider your expertise to be any greater than mine.

#28 eseedhouse

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 08:47 PM

Here are a few excerpts of the minutes of the recent meeting of the CRD Traffic Safety Commission


These excerpts hardly seem to evidence a hasty rush to reduce speeds in any way, shape, or form. It's a request to study the possibility. It's asking for evidence to be collected so a decision can be made based on it.

I wonder where all the panic is coming from?

#29 eseedhouse

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 08:49 PM

Pull it back a bit please, that could be taken the wrong way.


Thanks for the advice. I think you are right and in retrospect I do regret especially the last sentence. I will try to be less confrontational.

#30 rjag

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 09:29 PM

These excerpts hardly seem to evidence a hasty rush to reduce speeds in any way, shape, or form. It's a request to study the possibility. It's asking for evidence to be collected so a decision can be made based on it.

I wonder where all the panic is coming from?


The CRD Traffic Safety Commission are not the ones making the recommendation, its a governance group from the City of Victoria that are making a proposal to reduce urban limits Province wide... the excerpts I quoted are data supplied to the CRD Traffic Safety folks as a discussion point and provide basic info that supports the status quo....You might have confused the 2 groups

The data is out there and readily available

http://www.winnipegf...-185978522.html

A city administrative report, released Monday, said many studies conducted throughout North America have shown driver speed is affected by the road and not by speed-limit signs.


Similarly, the report said the results of a pilot project in Edmonton were inconclusive. Edmonton's pilot project found driver speed was reduced by two to three km/h and did not lead to any statistically significant changes in the total number of collisions or severe collisions.

The report said some drivers will follow the lower speed limit while others will ignore it, disrupting traffic and increasing the potential for collisions between slower and faster drivers.

"Speed limits that are inconsistent with driver expectations breed disrespect and will not be complied with, except with extensive enforcement," the report said. "This places an unnecessary burden on law-enforcement personnel (cost and resources) with limited long-term results."


http://www.ibiblio.o...u/sl-irrel.html

The majority of motorist did not drive 5 mi/h (8 km/h) above the posted speed limits when speed limits were raised, nor did they reduce their speed by 5 or 10 mi/h (8 or 16 km/h) when speed limits are lowered. Data collected at the study sites indicated that the majority of speed limits are posed below the average speed of traffic. Lowering speed limits below the 50th percentile does not reduce accidents, but does significantly increase driver violations of the speed limit. Conversely, raising the posted speed limits did not increase speeds or accidents.



#31 sebberry

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 09:40 PM

What you don't mention, especially from my viewpoint as a pedestrian, is that it isn't just cars that get hit, and no just drivers who get hurt. A generally lower speed would, I think, certainly reduce the danger to those of us who have to walk, especially at night. And I think we have some rights to be considered, too.


All I'm really hearing is this physics argument that "the faster you go, the harder you hit", but I'm still not reading anything that links increased speed to an increased risk of a pedestrian being hit.

A car mounting the curb and mowing down a pedestrian is almost unheard of unless the driver is drunk or distracted.

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#32 eseedhouse

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Posted 13 January 2013 - 11:32 PM

All I'm really hearing is this physics argument that "the faster you go, the harder you hit", but I'm still not reading anything that links increased speed to an increased risk of a pedestrian being hit.


This seems to be irrelevant. Even if the risk of being hit remains the same the increased speed means that the hits will do more damage, because of the laws of physics. The laws of physics are not an "argument" by the way - they are an implacable and unchangeable fact.

A car mounting the curb and mowing down a pedestrian is almost unheard of unless the driver is drunk or distracted.


The "except" clause in that sentence appears to me to render it moot. It amounts to saying that such accidents are almost unheard of except for the ones that actually happen. Drunk or distracted drivers exist and are likely to continue existing in about the same proportions for at least the near future.

A car that goes out of control at high speed must, by the laws of nature, go further and thus be more risky than one at a lower speed. This is a fact that nothing can change.

In any event the whole argument seems pointless given the very high likelihood of human driving of cars being disallowed in the next ten to twenty years.

#33 Sparky

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Posted 14 January 2013 - 12:04 AM

In any event the whole argument seems pointless given the very high likelihood of human driving of cars being disallowed in the next ten to twenty years.


That's a joke right? You can't be serious when you suggest that within 120 and 240 months from now, someone is going to gather up all the cars in this country and throw them in the garbage can........then make us purchase transportation devices where we program in our destination....and sit back and relax???

What the hell will we do when it comes time to park?

I think you are low on tin foil.

#34 jklymak

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Posted 14 January 2013 - 07:40 AM

That's a joke right? You can't be serious when you suggest that within 120 and 240 months from now, someone is going to gather up all the cars in this country and throw them in the garbage can........then make us purchase transportation devices where we program in our destination....and sit back and relax???

What the hell will we do when it comes time to park?

I think you are low on tin foil.


This technology is already available, so its not tin-foil territory. Google has over 300,000 driverless miles logged on their cars. Its pretty expensive, but so were flat screen TVs 10 years ago. As for parking, I am not sure what your point is - thats a trivial task and there are plenty of commercial cars that can do that for you now.

#35 Bingo

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Posted 14 January 2013 - 08:17 AM

Since Tattersall was improved east of Uptown it has become a major route over to Blenkinsop. On the stretch between Quadra and Blenkinsop the recommended speed is 30 at "S" curve, but drivers often take that section at 60. A car spun out in front of me once and took out two of the large yellow signs that indicate the sharp curve.

#36 tedward

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Posted 14 January 2013 - 08:51 AM

I think we'll agree that speed limits should be as consistent as possible over the region.


And this is an example of the kind of muddied thinking that creates problems where none existed. Changing the default speed limit to 40 from 50 in no way, shape or form changes the consistency of speed limits over the region. A statutory limit is no more or less "consistent" if the number is "X" rather then "Y".

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#37 Mike K.

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Posted 14 January 2013 - 09:40 AM

As someone has already mentioned earlier in this thread, pedestrian fatalities are more often caused by slow moving vehicles than outright speeding vehicles. The last two downtown pedestrian fatalities occurred as two slow moving vehicles struck pedestrians.

As eseedhouse maintains, if we're dealing with physics and nothing else therefore slower speeds equal greater safety, then lets get all buses off the roads. I think we can all agree that a bus traveling at 30km/h will pack a significantly greater wallop if it hits a pedestrian than would a faster traveling Honda Civic. Recall that several months ago a bus likely traveling no faster than 15km/h struck and killed a pedestrian on a downtown street.

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#38 sebberry

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Posted 14 January 2013 - 10:12 AM

What I'm reading here is a lot of deflection from the core issue. Physics, self driving cars and tinfoil hats but no real explanation of how a 50kph limit comes with a greater risk of a pedestrian being hit than 40kph does.

eseedhouse repeatedly states if a car hits a pedestrian, they stand a better chance if that car is travelling at 40kph than 50kph. I won't argue with that, but I am still unclear as to how the increased limit equates to a greater risk of the car hitting the pedestrian in the first place.

I know I keep asking that question, but let's move beyond the physics that take place once a car has left the road and is on a collision course with a pedestrian and instead focus on what causes the situation in the first place.

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#39 sebberry

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Posted 14 January 2013 - 10:16 AM

The "except" clause in that sentence appears to me to render it moot. It amounts to saying that such accidents are almost unheard of except for the ones that actually happen. Drunk or distracted drivers exist and are likely to continue existing in about the same proportions for at least the near future.


The behaviors of these drivers is typically unaffected by the posted speed limit. The distracted or impaired condition has a far greater bearing on how they operate their car than the posted limit.

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#40 eseedhouse

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Posted 14 January 2013 - 10:27 AM

That's a joke right?


No, it's a reasonable projection of present day trends, made by some serious and well educated scientists.

In fact cars driven by computers alone are street legal in California right now. Google uses a lot of them. When, not if, these cars become significantly safer than people driven ones the eventual result is not in doubt, though there will of course be a lot of resistance


What the hell will we do when it comes time to park?

Right now you can buy a car that will park itself quite well.

I think you are low on tin foil.

I think that calling me names does not change the observable facts.

Well, if I am wearing a tin hat so are, among others, the folks at Time magazine.

However in order to avoid dragging the thread off topic further I will refrain from discussing it further.

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