City officials are set to meet this coming week on a review of the city’s residential speed limits, with three scenario’s being proposed;
Scenario 1 – Residential Streets and Collector Roads reduced to 30km/h
Scenario 2 – Residential Streets to 30km/h, Collector Roads to 50km/h
Scenario 3 – Residential and Collector Roads to 40km/h
The city advises that about 25 per cent of motor vehicle collisions happen within neighborhoods each year, with about 5.5 per cent resulting in serious injury or death. The societal cost for traffic accidents in the city is estimated at more than $1.2 billion dollars a year.
The city has provided a calculation tool for you to understand the impacts of these changes. We put in a journey from the North West to the South East and its literally impacts by only a few minutes adhering Scenario 1.
Bike Calgary’s own Jonathan van Heyst was asked by the Calgary Herald as to what impact this might have on the cycling community in this article:
Clearly the impacts of a change have a wider reaching positive impact to the communities, and the possibility of saving lives cannot be ignored for all users, including drivers.
Interestingly in Airdrie, residential speed limits have been 30km/h since 1982!
reducing the speed limit is so dangerous, speeding will actually increase accidents.
I ride more than 10K each year and trust me it is not speed that is dangerous, it is the drivers and the overall condition of our streets.
I have been hit by a car twice in the last few years while riding and it had nothing to do with speed, driver error was the cause of both accidents.
I have also had many close calls and trust me it is Driver ERROR and not speed.
Would be interesting to see the actual police reports on cycling accidents to see what the actual cause was, it was not speed.
As a daily cyclist I have no problem with a 50 k speed limit. It is my understanding that most car-pedestrians occur when cars are turning at intersections. Speed limits are not the issue here- driver ( and pedestrian) inattention is.