Calgary still lowering residential speed limits, but crashes and fatalities increase

A four-block stretch of 20th Street S.W. was recently rejected as one of the city's next streets to drop from a speed limit of 50 kilometres an hour to 40. It has some people who live in the popular neighbourhood of South Calgary questioning whether that was the right move. 

"It's a very busy, fast-moving street, in a residential area, you know, which is concerning for myself and others who are walking in the area," said John Deneer, who was out walking his dog recently, not far from a speed reader sign that lights up when traffic exceeds 50 km/h.

Holly Mendel, who was holding her young baby, agrees with Deneer. 

"I think it would be a good idea if it did go to 40 [kilometres an hour]. The fact that there aren't four-way intersections creates the potential for cars to speed on through and cause accidents."

Traffic on 20th Street, from 33rd Avenue to 29th Avenue S.W. was recently monitored. The city determined, among other things, that the average speed was more than 45 kilometres an hour — too fast for the city to drop the speed limit from 50 km/h. 

"If we drop the speed limit by 10 kilometres an hour, that doesn't mean that people's behaviour is going to change by 10 kilometres an hour," said Tony Churchill, the city's senior leader of mobility safety.

"But some people will observe that. And so then we end up with a larger spread in speeds, which can also create speed differentials, which can create collisions," he said. 

Churchill says the speed has to be consistently below the posted speed limit before a change is considered.

And there are other criteria the city considers.

The length of the roadway is taken into account and whether it has any playground zones or bus routes. The city will also consider whether traffic calming measures have been installed. 

In 2021, Calgary lowered the speed limit on all residential and collector roads from 50 km/h to 40. Calgarians were told that if there is no posted speed limit, the default is 40 km/h. 

But further reductions have been made.

The city says it is listening to Calgarians who want slower speeds and it has dropped the limit to 40 km/h on 69 streets in all quadrants of the city.

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