Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[ijmorlan]

But I do think this is an important policy. We need to use every tool at our disposal. Lower speed limits isn't a complete solution in and of itself, but it is a component of every other solution. You cannot use ASE to enforce a lower speed than the limit, our engineers refuse to design a road for a lower speed than the limit, police refuse to call "speed" a factor in a collision where the driver was travelling even remotely close to the limit at the time of impact.

Of course you can’t and they refuse. By definition, it’s not illegal to drive under the speed limit, and it’s obviously insane to have a road designed to be unsafe at the posted limit (just as insane as having the normal road design be unsafe for non-drivers).

That being said, the fix would be to lower the limit in many cases, re-design the street for the new limit, and enforce the new limit, including with automated techniques.

I also think it's a policy that's easy to support. Yes...tons of people make often bad faith, always selfish arguments against it, but most people, and especially most people who have the most political sway (you know, own houses) live in residential areas and don't like people speeding past their homes. It's a policy which wealthy drivers can see themselves benefiting from. I am, frankly, surprised, and disappointed that Waterloo reversed their decision on the 30km/h limit. It makes no sense, these people made that decision, but they didn't seem to run on that as a platform, and I think it should have been subject to the usual 60% bar on reversing a previous council's decision.

I’m pretty sure the 60% bar is on reversing the same council’s decision. City government is allowed to change previous policies, just not keep flip-flopping during a single council term depending on who is away that day.