The speed limit may drop in areas throughout the city next year, pending council’s consent of a series of staff recommendations aimed at reducing the frequency and severity of collisions.
“We heard loud and clear from the Guelph community that they want to see lower speeds in areas with vulnerable road users and more enforcement of speeding,” said Steve Anderson, the city’s manager of transportation engineering, in a news release. “Reducing speed limits on selected roads, creating community safety zones and introducing automated speed enforcement will improve road safety and reduce collision severity in our city.”
The staff recommendations, publicly released Thursday as part of council’s July 5 committee of the whole meeting agenda, would see the speed limit reduced from 50 km/h to 40 km/h in 48 neighbourhoods as well as all streets in the Downtown core, excluding Carden and Wilson streets which currently have a 30 km/h limit.
A 10 km/h speed limit reduction is also proposed for 12 collector and arterial roads, including sections of Clair Road West, Gordon Street, College Avenue, Eastview Road, Wellington Street and Woolwich Street.
The recommendations follow an online survey which ran from Nov. 9 to 30 that garnered 1,188 responses, 49 per cent of which favour a 10 or 20 kn/h reduction to speed limits in the city, while 51 per cent prefer limits to stay as they are.
“Despite 50 per cent of the community engagement feedback voting against a speed limit reduction, staff are still proceeding with a recommendation to lower speed limits from 50 km/h to 40 km/h on local roads given the evidence showing the positive impacts of lower speeds on road safety and a reduction in injury severity with vulnerable populations,” states the report.
Road safety was also identified as a top priority during public consultations for the development of a variety of city planning documents, the staff report points out.
A staff presentation included in the committee agenda package notes a collision happens every 230 minutes in Guelph, with one person injured every nine hours and a fatality every 130 days. Pedestrian and cyclist collisions each happen once every 10 days.
Among the staff recommendations is a proposal to spend $300,000 on a pair of mobile speed enforcement signs with cameras to aid in enforcement of the lowered limits. Those devices are to be moved around throughout the city every one to two weeks.
Council is set to discuss the recommendations as a committee of the whole on July 5, with likely endorsement of the committee’s decision on July 19.
If approved, speed limit reductions would begin in 2022, followed by the use of automated speed enforcement (ASE) devices in 2023 to monitor compliance with limit reductions.
The deadline to register as a delegate or make a written submission for the July 5 committee of the whole meeting iis July 2 at 10 a.m. To register, visit guelph.ca/delegation, call 519-837-5603 or email [email protected].
