‘Do people keep 40? Not really, they’re still going 50 . . . but when it was 50, they were going 60,’ said Lakeview resident Dave Quon
Three years after speed limits were lowered on residential Calgary streets, communities across the city are requesting the effort go further.
Since then, the City of Calgary has received 105 requests to review speed limits on collector roads, which connect neighbourhoods to busier areas and typically have a centre line.
Received through 311, councillor requests and community associations, each request for a speed limit change is assessed by the city to determine if it meets established criteria. Those include existing traffic calming measures, the length of the road, if the average speed of drivers is “consistently” below the current limit, traffic volume and whether or not there’s a bus route.
Of the speed limit review requests, 67 have been approved, 19 remain under review and another 19 failed to meet requirements, according to Tony Churchill, the city’s senior leader of mobility safety.
“A lot of those are on collector roadways where we didn’t have data when we were doing the initial (2021) assessment,” he said. “We’ve been collecting data where we’ve had requests to review the speeds for reduction.”
That data is then compared to the criteria before a decision is made.
Drivers ‘more compliant with speed’
Churchill says a common theme with requests that come in are people that have houses facing the roadways.
“They feel uncomfortable and unsafe with the speeds at which vehicles are driving by their houses,” he said. “Quite often it’s just concern about safety or near misses that they’re experiencing.”
There are also concerns about difficulty getting onto the road, difficulty crossing the road and noise complaints, according to Churchill.
“These are places where people live, and they would like to have the same speed and level of safety that people who live on residential roadways have.”
Churchill said small changes in average speed are correlated with crash outcomes — every one per cent reduction in speed results in a two per cent reduction to all collisions on average, a three per cent reduction in “injury” collisions and a four per cent reduction for fatal collisions.
“We know that there’s still some people who don’t abide by the speed limits, but it seems like overall, our averages are improving,” Churchill said. “People are being a little bit more compliant with speed.”
The way road environments are built can also be a “very strong signal” to drivers about what the appropriate speed is, said Churchill.
“On some of our narrower roads, particularly if there are curb extensions, but even if they’re just heavily parked, people do change their behavior,” he said. “Changing the road environment is definitely something we know influences people’s choice of speed.”
In June 2023, city data showed that drivers reduced their speed by between 0.8 to 2.5 km/h since the lowering of unposted limits.
He says the city has yet to do a “comprehensive review” like that of 2023, but there have been observed indications that speed limit compliance is continuing to improve for residential and collector roadways.
Reductions ‘slowed it down a bit’: resident
Of the 67 roads that have been reduced, 34 are in southwest Calgary, 12 are in the southeast, 17 are in the northwest and only four are in the northeast.
Lakeview Drive S.W. is one of the many roads in the quadrant that has seen speeds go from 50 km/h to 40 km/h in recent years.
Dave Quon has lived on the street for more than 40 years, and he believes the change has made somewhat of a difference.
“Do people keep 40? Not really, they’re still going 50 . . . but when it was 50, they were going 60,” Quon said. “So it has kind of slowed it down a bit.”
He said people have been doing a better job “abiding” by the limit, noting that the occasional police presence has helped.
“There’s always times where you get those idiots that are really bombing it down (the road) and you’re crossing, and (then) you have to yell and say, slow down,” he explained. “But, you know it’s getting better, before it was always ‘slow down’.”
Another road that’s had its speed reduced to 40 km/h is 5th Avenue N.W., where resident Sofia Fosado has owned a home for two years.
Her home also has a playground zone nearby and she says there are many families with young kids in the neighbourhood.
“I don’t see the speed in this area being a concern. It’s more just the level of traffic or the amount of drivers on the street,” Fosado said.
Particularly during peak “rush hour” times is when she says it can take as much as 15 minutes to leave her home due to traffic. Despite this, she’s never had a concern for safety when out walking, or issues with drivers not stopping.
Some collector roads where speeds have been reduced have 40 km/h signs posted, while others are without signs or “unposted” like most other residential streets.
Churchill says generally they don’t post the default or the “unposted” speed limit, with some exceptions.
“That’s really just to reduce the number of signs on our entire network that we need to install and then maintain,” he said.
Exceptions are if someone is turning off of a roadway where the speed limit is 20 kilometers an hour higher or more — for example, from 60 km/h to 40 km/h. That’s when they’d post the 40 km/h, Churchill said.
They will also post for “roadways that continue” but the speed limit changes.
‘There was speeding before . . . I think it’s more now’
Haddon Road S.W. also underwent a speed change, but a resident who’s lived along the road for 20 years claims the reduction has done little to slow down traffic on the road.
Sheila, who declined to share her last name, says she hasn’t really noticed a change since speeds went down to 40 km/h.
“There was speeding before . . . I think it’s more now, because people are using it more,” Sheila said.
She believes more people have turned to the road as an alternative to the nearby and far busier Macleod Trail during busy times.
“I think the majority of the problem is people cutting through just because there are no lights,” she said. “I don’t know what the answer is.”
Sheila suggested the possibility of speed bumps — the road has multiple playground zones — more signage, or regular speed monitoring to quell the issue.
— With files from Postmedia