City seeks public input on push to lower speed limit

Council’s transportation committee voted Wednesday to direct administration to engage with citizens and businesses on options to re-evaluate speed limits on all but Calgary’s busiest roads.

Three options are on the table, including an overall reduction to 30 km/h on both residential and collector roads (roads that move traffic from local streets to major thoroughfares), 40 km/h for both, or 30 km/h on residential roads and 50 km/h on collector roads.

Pending council’s go-ahead next month, city staff will examine the options along with members of the public and produce a report, along with recommendations to council, by June 2020.

The public engagement process will cost about $200,000, administration told members of the committee.

“If you look at one collision with an injury, it’s a minimum of $250,000 cost to society, so I think this is money well spent,” said Coun. Druh Farrell.

“It helps us change the way we build our communities. That is the No. 1 benefit from this.”

Lowering speed limits will result in varied reductions in collisions, injuries and fatalities, depending on the option chosen, according to a city report.

In Calgary, there are approximately 10,250 total collisions per year, which includes 680 fatal and injury collisions, and 260 collisions resulting in casualties to vulnerable members of society.

A blanket speed limit of 30 km/h would result in 10 to 20 per cent fewer residential road collisions and a four to eight per cent reduction in collector road collisions, according to the report. That would mean 750 to 1,490 fewer collisions per year overall.

Coun. Jeff Davison said it comes down to changing driver behaviour, rather than just speed limit adjustments.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, we can change speed limits all we want. It’s not going to change behaviour,” he said. “People have to be willing to change behaviour.”

But Farrell said it’s a given that speed plays a factor in all collisions.

“It’s physics,” she said. “We know that people have a better chance of survival, a much, much better chance of survival, when the speeds are lower.”

City staff say traffic collisions are currently costing the city around $1.2 billion per year. So far this year, collisions have resulted in three fatalities and about 250 injuries.

Coun. Sean Chu, who voted against the motion along with councillors Jeromy Farkas and Joe Magliocca, called reductions to speed limits “unnecessary.” He said driver education is a more important method to reduce traffic accidents.

“If our goal is Vision Zero, where no one gets hurt, guess what? The best way is ‘speed zero,’” Chu said.

“But is that possible? Most likely not. And if the government tries to protect everybody, which is impossible, I would suggest that it is best to provide sumo suits for everybody, with helmets, so that way people are not going to get injured.

“I believe that this is 100 per cent virtue signalling and totally impractical.”

Farrell called the comment “offensive,” referring to Chu’s comparison as “nonsense.”

“We have over 10,000 collisions a year in Calgary. Almost 700 of them result in injuries or death,” she said in council chambers.

“This is not a joke. This is not virtue signalling — I don’t even know what that means. If it means stigmatizing empathy, then, yes, I’m virtue signalling because I empathize with the people who are grieving over loved ones.”

We know that people have a better chance of survival … when the speeds are lower.