County councillors, and in particular mayors of the six lower tier municipalities, have received a report that could help them defend or justify speed limits on roads in their jurisdiction.
Roads committee chairman Joanne Ross-Zuj said in her report on Jan. 24 that a study by the Transportation Association of Canada can provide help when residents seek changes.
County engineer Gord Ough said in his report to the roads committee the study has been some years in the making, even though there were several American ones available.
Ough outlined the problem in the opening of his report.
“Historically, road authorities and municipal councils have found dealing with requests from residents to lower or raise the posted speed limit on a section of road within their jurisdiction to be generally unsettling or awkward.”
He said, “This is often due to the fact that they find themselves dealing with highly emotionally charged residents who may be reacting to a fear for the safety of their children, elderly family members or neighbours. They may be reacting to a near miss, or to a recent accident involving bodily injury or a fatality.”
Ough said, “The lack of clear, simple and understandable guidelines for establishing posted speed limits has also contributed to the discomfort. Notwithstanding that there have been a couple of systems available that were designed in American Universities, the county has been patiently waiting for the long promised [Transportation Association of Canada] guidelines.
As Ross-Zuj put it, the TAC guidelines can help councils understand and explain why speed limits are set on their roads and “justify why we have speed limits.”
She urged in particular that the mayors at county council take those guidelines back to their municipal councillors.
She said, “I’m sure it will be well used.”
Councillor Dennis Lever, the mayor of Puslinch Township, said his council has been wrestling with the issue of speed limits over the past few months.
Puslinch is not alone. Centre Wellington council has been seeing numerous delegations seeking speed limit changes, and, last term, Wellington County has faced several requests. While some are for slower speeds, the county has also been pressed to increase speed limits on some county roads in the past, based on the argument that county roads were designed and built to move traffic efficiently.
Mapleton Township, too, has had delegations over the past year seeking speed limit reductions.
In a recent report on the TAC website, there was an explanation and justification of increasing the speed limit on roads in Saskatchewan from 100km/h to 110.
That report stated, “When raising speed limits, it is a concern that the faster drivers will increase their speeds while the slower drivers’ speeds will remain the same. This results in a wider speed distribution. Faster drivers increasing their speeds will cause an extension in the top end of the distribution, while the unchanged slower speeds results in the slow end of the distribution to remain the same.”
But a study that was done in 2009 showed that was not the case “at least in the short term. It appears that the percentile distributions for the before and after studies are uniform. The plots show the increased vehicle speeds appear to be relatively uniform throughout the speed distribution.”
The report noted that paying attention to the speed limit is not something that many drivers follow.
The study was done over a wide number of places in the province and the report noted, “Individual sites experienced increases in per cent of vehicles exceeding 110km/h ranging from 13% as high as 36%. The speed limit increase appears to have created a higher driver compliance rate.”
To see the report, visit http://www.tac-atc.ca/english/.
