Research suggests Ottawa’s proposal to lower speed limits not most effective safety strategy
When Ottawa’s city council meets today, one of the top items on the agenda will be the potential lowering of certain street speed limits to an unprecedented (for the city) 30 km/h. While it’s hard to argue with sentiment of wanting to improve safety in residential neighbourhoods, school zones, and other at-risk areas, research suggests that lowering the speed limit might not be a very effective method of doing so.
Studies that have been done on the matter “have shown that reducing the speed limit on a roadway has minimal impact on the operating speed unless the roadway conditions cater to the lower speed limit as well.” Essentially, people will drive at the speed that feels warranted based on the type of road it is—and not necessarily what the limit explicitly states.
What will slow people down are tangible elements that either physically force drivers to lower their speed or surveillance that captures irrefutable evidence of how they’ve been driving. The former option could include speed bumps and obstacles of that nature, skinnier streets (this could also be accomplished by allowing more on-street parking), or bulges that protrude from the sidewalk. The latter option would be enforced through the use of photo radar devices.
Of those methods, photo radar appears to be the most cost effective and timely. As much as speed bumps and bulges can help remedy a situation, they cost thousands of dollars to implement and such projects often spend lots of time stuck on a long waiting list, stuck behind pertinent issues on other worthy roads. Plus, photo radar seems to really keep things in check. CBC cites a study done in Medicine Hat, Alberta that reviewed a decade’s worth of data and found that the average speed in a 50 km/h zone was 48.7 km/h and the average in a 30 km/h zone was 28.5 km/h.
The information is all there. Now the ball is in Ottawa’s court.