Calgary still lowering residential speed limits, but crashes and fatalities increase
Reducing from 50 to 40 km/h has helped in neighbourhoods but not on busiest roads
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.
City drops speed limit on 69 residential, collector roads
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.
WATCH | What traffic rules are changing in the city?
They include sections of Huntington Road N.E., Panamount Street N.W., Bridlewood Boulevard S.W. and New Brighton Drive S.E.
Nineteen other routes, including 20th Street S.W., were rejected. Twenty-nine are under review pending a speed study.
The city has confirmed 19th Street N.W. from Memorial Drive to Fifth Avenue will soon be dropped to 40 km/h.
Slower speeds, fewer crashes with injuries, fatalities
Tony Churchill says speed monitoring and remote sensors using cellphone technology suggest that speeds on residential and collector roads have come down since the change — and so, too, have the number of casualties, but not on all roads.
He says the residential speed reductions range from 0.8 to 2.5 km/h. He acknowledges the decreases are not "huge," but they can still have an impact.
"So we know that every one per cent change in speed can result in a two per cent change in collisions, a three per cent change in injury collisions and a four per cent change in fatal collisions," he said.
Casualty collisions dropped by one per cent on residential streets compared to the five-year average before the speed change. On collector roads, the collisions causing injury or death dropped by 13 per cent.
On the city's busiest roads, including Deerfoot, Crowchild, Glenmore and Stoney trails, major injuries and fatalities are climbing.
There's been an increase of 14 per cent on urban boulevards, 24 per cent on arterial roads and 26 per cent on skeletal roads.
The city, which provides a comparison to Edmonton and Toronto, registered the highest per capita number of injuries and fatalities at 43 per 100,000 population. Edmonton registered 33, while Toronto had 10.
It's also a grim picture for pedestrian injuries and fatalities in Calgary, with the city registering 9.6 per 100,000, compared to 6.9 in Edmonton and 4.6 in Toronto. All numbers are for 2023.
"Some of those things like more traffic on the roadways, maybe some poor behaviours like more distracted driving. We've been hearing anecdotally as an issue some speeding compliance issues on higher class roadways. So all of those things are very concerning," he said.
Const. Les Mills has been in the traffic section of the Calgary Police Service for 10 years. He believes the speed reduction is making a difference, but he says drivers and their vehicles have changed over the last few years.
"We see a lot more racing going on in the city of Calgary, and that's where we get all the issues. People driving faster, cars are a lot safer, collision detection warnings and all this type of stuff in newer vehicles — some people rely on them too heavily," he said.
The city's recently expired safer mobility plan failed to reach its 25 per cent target to reduce collisions. The next iteration, which runs from 2024 to 2028, is aiming for the same goal.
Bryan Labby is an enterprise reporter with CBC Calgary. If you have a good story idea or tip, you can reach him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @CBCBryan.
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