Speed limit system stalled
After three delays, province vows it will start this fall
An adjustable speed limit system that could help reduce crashes on Highway 1 through the eastern Fraser Valley has been delayed for a third time.
Signs have been in position along the new variable speed limit corridor from the eastern edge of Abbotsford near the Sumas River bridge to the Prest Road exit in Chilliwack since the summer of 2019, but the system has been in the testing phase since then.
Asked this week when it may be operational, the Ministry of Transportation said it is expected to be “up and running ” by late fall 2020. The system — a first for B.C. — was announced in July 2018.
“People are frustrated with being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic ... and crashes during congestion means it takes even longer to get moving again,” Transportation Minister Claire Trevena said at the time.
Installation began almost immediately, and the system was expected to be operational by the summer of 2019. Although the signs were installed by that deadline, the ministry told the Abbotsford News six months of data collection and testing were needed, pushing the opening date back to the winter of 2019.
While a weather-based speed limit system on Highway 3 east of Hope became operational that winter, the congestion-based system on Highway 1 was delayed again, until early 2020, according to a story in the Chilliwack Progress. Now, it may be late fall before the coverings come off the signs and the system is working.
“Delays in opening were due to data collection and rigorous system development and testing,” said a Ministry of Transportation statement sent in response to Postmedia questions about the timeline.
While B.C. has several weather-based variable speed limit systems, including one on Highway 3 and another on Highway 99, the congestion-based system on Highway 1 will be the first of its kind in the province. The ministry studied data from other jurisdictions, including the active traffic and demand management system in Washington State, before announcing the system.
A six-year study of the similar system on Interstate 5 from Boeing field to downtown Seattle found a 1.3 per cent reduction in weekday crashes and a 14 per cent reduction in weekend crashes compared to the years before the system was in place.
Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun said he was waiting to see how the Highway 1 system worked before “passing judgment” on it. An outspoken advocate of widening the highway through the Fraser Valley, Braun said variable speed limits may prevent crashes, but they won’t change traffic volume.
Braun pointed to the economic and environmental costs of idling traffic, including transport trucks, on a two-lane highway that hasn’t been widened since it was built in 1963.