Lower speed limit would be impractical

Re: City committee to consider lower speed limits in residential areas (SP, Oct. 5)

The proposed recommendations to reduce the speed limit in residential neighbourhoods are both impractical and impracticable and therefore frivolous.

While I would be in favour of reduced speed limits in residential neighbourhoods for all the obvious reasons, there is no meaningful way in which such could be implemented and therefore (even considering) such would be a waste of time and resources (including personnel and financial). Any measure requiring enforcement which cannot realistically be done is worse than useless.

Even currently posted speed limit reductions in school zones and other sensitive areas cannot be policed adequately, although the traffic section of the Saskatoon Police Service is doing its level best in this regard.

Meaningful enforcement would be virtually impossible and could only be carried out with personnel and/or photo radar on every residential street with reduced speed limits. The cost of such would be prohibitive. The signage alone necessary for such an endeavour would be cost-prohibitive.

The only manner in which speed limit reduction could be practically implemented would be to identify and placard sub neighbour hoods which have such a problem on a case-by-case basis and then enforce such consistently, which might entail, for example, enabling commissionaires to do so (as a cost-containment solution). But that could be done without reducing speed limits, since it is fairly clear that complaints in this area involve motorists exceeding the current speed limits by a considerable amount. John Delack, Saskatoon