Some municipal transportation staff believe that lower speed limits do not in fact slow vehicles, making it safer for pedestrians and cyclists to also share the street. In Edmonton new lower speed signage around schools HAS slowed traffic.
As reported in the Edmonton Metro News last Friday in areas around schools subject to new 30 km an hour zones, there has been a marked decrease in car accidents with pedestrians and cyclists. There is also some handy information about stopping distances on the City’s website, as well as some very sobering statistics:
- Children aged 5 to 14 years are at the greatest risk for pedestrian-related deaths
- Children aged 10 to 14 years have the highest incidence of pedestrian-related injuries
- The most common action that results in injury or death of a child is crossing at an intersection
In Edmonton twelve school zones had new pedestrian crossing lights, freshly painted sidewalks, reader boards indicating drivers’ speed, and reflective stop sign poles implemented.
Collisions causing injuries to cyclists and pedestrians fell by more than 70 per cent from an average of seven before the change was implemented in 2014 to just two during the school year in 2015.
This is all part of Edmonton’s Vision Zero strategy to stop road deaths and injuries within the city. Some residents are now asking for the 30 km/h to be extended throughout the neighbourhoods.
We’ve had 30km/h zones fronting schools and parks here for sometime.
What we need is enforcement. How I wish there were cops out front of Norquay Elementary as I watched 4 cars speed through the crosswalk at 3:30 on a school day with kids standing on the curb waiting to cross.
I’m not sure it’s even a matter of enforcement (though I certainly agree that we need that) as it is a matter of proper design. Our system of changing speeds on a block by block basis is confusing and because of that it’s ignored. It’s only made worse by a law that defaults to the maximum speed whenever we don’t specifically put up a sign saying otherwise (because, let’s face it, people do not follow signs).
An easy first step would be to lower the speed limit on back streets. However, the logical way to do it would be to reverse the current model, say the speed limit is 30, and you can go faster on specific interconnections/arterials.
Thank you for posting this, Sandy. But can we please quit calling these “accidents”? Unless your car is suddenly struck by lighting or the bottom falls out of your coffee cup, there’s nothing accidental about car crashes. They’re the result of deliberately reckless and/or careless driving behaviour – usually by drivers, but sometimes pedestrians or both. It matters a great deal because an “accident” isn’t something we need to take seriously. “Crash”, “death”, “killing” are more likely to make us wake up and take note that thousands of people are routinely murdered and permanently crippled on our roads and sidewalks every single year – and we all casually accept this as just the price of doing business.
That said, arbitrarily reducing speeds around schools does help somewhat. Unfortunately, many traffic engineers are no different from other normal people and will pooh-pooh an idea that does not by itself solve the problem 100%. I used to think a 40k/hr speed limit around schools was preferable to 30k/hr because there would be less non-compliance. That’s likely true, but I’d be willing to guess that both median and average speeds are lower in a 30k than a 40k zone, which is really the goal.
After 7 years of walking my kids the .9 km to school, they’re on their own.
We pretty much never took the car; were not part of that car-centric clusterf*ck. It was good for them; gave them a chance to get the wiggles out before being locked up.
The driving scene around schools is an imbroglio. It shouldn’t be. There should be a civilized drop-off/pick-up lane just like at the airport. Get in, get out. Safe.
Instead, the school employees arrogate to themselves door-to-door parking – screw the customers – the polar opposite of how business works.
A Vancouver School Board Trustee I know tried to convince the board to implement a fee for teacher parking. This was rejected by the teachers and the board caved in and voted against the proposal. Providing free parking for staff is so unfair in so many ways.
When my children went to elementary school, the PAC set up a parent parking patrol. We encouraged police to show up from time to time to hand out tickets and we occasionally had a speed board. This tended to reduce the chaos but was a lot of work.