Rather than making piecemeal changes to speed limits, Victoria city council should expand its scope as it ponders lower speeds on certain streets.
The council proposes lowering the limit on several streets to 40 kilometres an hour from 50 km/h, and to 30 km/h on one road.
A special public hearing on the issue Thursday was well-attended, but no consensus emerged.
When speeds go up, so do accidents and injuries, said a road-safety researcher.
Lowering the limits would impede the flow of traffic and make driving more frustrating, said a business owner in one of hundreds of emailed responses.
Councillors Shellie Gudgeon and Ben Isitt have been the driving force behind the push for lower speed limits. They backed a resolution to the Union of sa国际传媒 Municipalities last year to call on the province to set the default speed limit for residential areas at 40 km/h. The motion failed.
The city鈥檚 engineering staff recommends that the speed limit stay at 50 km/h, saying that most motorists drive at the speed they think is safe, and that limits set too high or too low are often ignored.
A speed of 50 km/h is not excessive on a four-lane divided road with wide margins; it鈥檚 too fast for a narrow residential street. While there鈥檚 merit to the observation that most people drive at the speed they think is safe, it鈥檚 also obvious that opinions differ on what is safe 鈥� councillors say they get frequent complaints from neighbourhoods about drivers speeding through residential areas.
There鈥檚 a push in Europe to lower speed limits.
鈥淭here are fewer accidents where the speed limit is lower, and those accidents which do happen are less severe,鈥� says a fact sheet issued by the European Federation for Transport and Environment (known as T&E), a confederation of non-governmental organizations that promotes sustainable transport in Europe.
The paper says that when the speed limit is reduced to 30 km/h from 50 km/h, the total number of accidents declines by 20 per cent, and the number of serious accidents decreases even more.
Opponents of lower limits say more congestion and slower traffic will result. The T&E fact sheet says that rather than creating more traffic jams and congestion, lower speed limits can actually expedite traffic. It cites studies of Swiss traffic patterns that show a slower speed allows side traffic to filter in more easily and keeps the traffic moving more smoothly, reducing overall travel time.
Lower speed limits have the potential to reduce accidents, noise and pollution, adding to the quality of neighbourhood life. Instead of selecting certain streets, the lower speed limits should be applied to whole neighbourhoods. That would make it easier for motorized traffic to be compatible with cyclists and pedestrians.
Speed limits are only one factor in how long a journey takes 鈥� travel time is more affected by stop and yield signs, signals and crosswalks. A 10 km/h difference in speed in a cross-town journey will have a barely measurable effect on the time a trip takes.
Besides, in most cases, it鈥檚 much ado about nothing 鈥� conditions already dictate how fast the traffic moves. For example, the proposed 40-km/h limit for Victoria鈥檚 downtown core would hardly be noticed 鈥� because of the congestion and lights, traffic can鈥檛 move much faster than that anyway.
Lowering speed limits is not Victoria鈥檚 most urgent problem, but it won鈥檛 hurt anyone to slow down a little.
