Council to mull 30 km/h speed limit
Measure for Vancouver streets aims to cut rate of traffic deaths
Vancouver council will consider a motion next week calling for a cut to the speed limit that would effectively treat all residential side streets as if they were school zones. Green Coun. Pete Fry is proposing the city lobby the province to change the Motor Vehicle Act to a default speed limit of 30 km/h, down from 50 km/h, for “local streets,” and to direct city staff to start considering a pilot project within the city. Local governments in Canada and elsewhere, among them Victoria and Singapore, are considering lowering speed limits in urban areas to reduce traffic deaths. Others have already acted. This week, the Boston Globe reported the number of fatal traffic crashes in Boston dropped by nearly half over the past three years after the city lowered speed limits, added protected bike lanes and took other traffic-calming measures. In 2017, Boston lowered its speed limit for city roads from 30 to 25 miles per hour (a reduction from about 48 to 40 km/h), the Globe reported. Although deaths dropped significantly, the number of accidents causing injury increased slightly from 2016 to 2018, and city officials are considering lowering the limit even more, to 20 miles per hour or about 32 km/h. “It’s important to distinguish that what this is addressing is residential streets, i.e., streets without a centre line on them,” Fry said. “We’re not talking about arterials. We’re not talking about a war on the car. We’re talking about making streets safer for active transportation and for residents and pets and kids and families and skateboarders.” “The evidence really supports the rationale behind it,” Fry said.
“I’ve heard a few people suggest it might impact driver convenience and to that, I say, you know what else impacts convenience? Being hit by a car. And I’d suggest that they quite literally walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes, as a pedestrian.”
Vancouver has 30 km/h limits on designated bike routes, school and playground zones, and a few other stretches of road, such as the 100 block of East Hastings Street. Fry’s motion notes, however, that a blanket speed limit cut for local streets would require changes to the Motor Vehicle Act, or significant sign changes and road work. A report from B.C.’s Office of the Provincial Health Officer in 2016 called for reducing the default speed limit on roads within municipalities from 50 km/h to 30 km/h, which it describes as “the survivable speed for pedestrians and cyclists.” Michael Cain, a Vancouver-based spokesman for a driver’s advocacy group called Safety by Education Not Speed Enforcement, or SENSE B.C., said he is not opposed to reduced speed limits on local streets, although he doesn’t think “it’s going to achieve what the proponents think it’s going to achieve.” “… The concern is when they apply it to Granville Street … is that in the best interest of society as a whole?” Cain said. Fry’s motion also calls for city staff to identify by later this year a local street, area or areas for a test of a 30 km/h speed limit. The motion is on the agenda for Tuesday’s council meeting.