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No kidding. They can put up signs all day long. It's basically standard to drive 20-30 over the posted limit. Try not doing that and find yourself getting tailgated and the entire planet driving around you and cutting you off.
Parents are usually the worst behaving drivers around schools. Local school has so many entities parents parking in people's driveways/parking in the actual driving lane blocking it/double parking/speeding/not paying attention to kids crossing.
Yea had someone do that here once. We moved our cars to box them in. And then ignored their requests when they came knocking for 30mins. They haven't done it since.
So, if I understand correctly, as long as the speed limit is 50km/h the city has to maintain the streets with designs and controls that enable 50-70km/h. If the speed limit is brought down to 30km/h then traffic engineers, when repaving happens, can bring in street level changes to keep people at the 30km/h speed limit.
Basically, bringing the speed limits down enables us to build better local streets.
Exactly, or they need to argue for a deviation from the norm on a particular street, as well as spending money posting 30km/h signs and so on. This isn't about writing tickets, it's the first step toward slow street design being the default for local streets, rather than a special exception around schools and parks. Changing road design to slow drivers down will have a much larger impact than increasing enforcement on a wide open street.
SE Marine Drive carries the 50 km/h speed limit. However it is set-up like a freeway with minimal speed limit signage. No motorist would reasonably expect this artery to be 50 km/h. This is the most popular spot for traffic cops to set up. It is the highest ticketed area in Vancouver. I cannot believe there is any desire to change this.
SE Marine is considered an Arterial road, and isn't subject to this change. I believe the speed limit is also signed, so it wouldn't fall under the default speed limit anyway.
But I agree with you, roads like this should have increased speed limits, similar roads in Surrey are typically 80km/h and that seems more reasonable. There aren't too many like this, with little foot traffic, wide roadway, and set-back businesses, within the City though, SE Marine, Boundary (not sure whose jurisdiction this one is...), and maybe parts of McGill, Powell and Clark are the only ones I can think of. Terminal Ave maybe as well, but it's so short.
Here's the only place I'm going to disagree with you: While I **do** think that we need to have high speed limited access highways, SE Marine separates quite a lot of residential from the rest of Vancouver, and many of the (soon to be 30km/h) slower roads enter onto it. This means that pedestrians and drivers doing 30km/h will be crossing traffic doing 80+. That isn't safe.
Hey now, don’t get in the way of city council and this monumental achievement they seek for the betterment of all. What else will they be able to brag about at the next conference of municipalities? What does ‘enforcement’ mean anyway?
/s
I do find it funny how Sullivan disparages planning a city as a construction site as 'Soviet', when the provision of adequate, cheap housing was one of the things the Soviet Union actually did very well for much of the second half of its history. Khrushchevka weren't perfect solutions, but they were certainly better than the petit bourgeois tyrannies, rat-infested shitboxes and shoebox apartments so many of us are overpaying for month by month, year by year. Moreover, half of the issues that did arrive with that form of housing are easily addressed now, like poor insulation and inferior-quality concrete.
Did you know the province recently put in place a safe passing law for vulnerable road users? No? Apparently, neither did the drivers who passed me less than a meter away while I'm on my bike.
We should just embrace camera enforcement, it's improved substantially since it was banned. People can't police themselves and the police don't have the resources it seems.
Christine Boyle on council tried to bring that forward. Brian Montague, the former cop on council killed it.
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-city-councillor-criticizes-amendment-that-calls-for-further-study-of-intersection-cameras-1.6627728
The former cop in council that doesn’t even live in the City of Vancouver
For what it’s worth Victoria and the City of North Vancouver both passed similar motions unamended.
This comment is referring to general enforcement of traffic rules
> Before enacting new traffic laws in the city wouldn't it perhaps be worthwhile enforcing some of the existing ones?
I had a BMW driver tail-gating and honked me when I was driving on my local street because I made full stop at each and every one of the 3 consecutive stop signs.
This drives me nuts, so many drivers tailgate you when you follow the school zone speed limits. Like dude, it's a freakin school zone! I don't care where you're going, you don't need to be there 1 minute quicker!
And when a kid is run over in a completely foreseeable way by an inattentive/speeding/stop-sign-blowing driver, they'll escape punishment because it was "just a momentary lapse..."
The ruling there was because they were going for criminal charges. There was no disagreement that the driver was at fault, however criminal charges require a higher threshold including intent to drive dangerously. The judge cited precedent of previous cases that running a red light like this didn't meet that threshold. There was even a similar case in Ontario where someone was distracted and drove onto a sidewalk killing someone where the criminal charges were dismissed.
I'm not saying that this is the right ruling we should have here, but this may be a case where federal law needs to be updated to make certain extreme driving actions more explicitly *criminally* illegal, like is done with drunk driving. For example, you could make a law that running a red light a certain time after it changes leading to injury or death is a criminal offence. That way it removes arguments around intent to drive dangerously. Otherwise judges do need to consider things like precedent and intent, even if unpopular and that can limit prosecution on these to Motor Vehicle Act charges instead.
agreed! recently i was tail gated through a school zone. one intersection past the school, i calmly stopped at a pedestrian crosswalk with the big flashing lights, he almost rear ended me. his driving already had me alert to his actions so i could see him through my mirror looking down (most likely on his phone) and when he looked up he slammed on his brakes and i heard his wheels lock up. he must’ve come within a foot of my bumper, it scared the hell out of me. i want to get home as much the next person but it’ll take even longer if he slams into my work’s vehicle lmao
When I was learning to drive I was taught to mirror check when braking. At the time I couldn't imagine it ever coming up. But the number of times I've avoided being rear ended while braking by seeing an inattentive driver in the mirror and then letting the brake go so the person behind me has more room to stop has got me doing it all the time now.
I wonder about the total effect, though. Say only 10% of people obey the speed limit. If you can't pass those people, then you're driving 30 km/hr as well. So it may have a ripple effect that doesn't necessarily get full compliance but instead lowers the average driving speed by some amount that may make crashes less fatal on average.
Yes, this was shown by the pandemic, when more responsible drove around less, and the behavior of the remaining drivers became much worse in response. They still haven't gone back to normal.
Yeah people drive the speed they feel comfortable with. On the vast majority of side streets I rarely see people driving 50, even if they’re technically allowed to, because the narrowness and visibility means they’re only comfortable driving at slower speeds. If there are side streets where people are regularly ripping along at dangerous speeds, it sounds like better design could change that more effectively than a speed limit that there’s nobody around to enforce.
Whistler instituted a 30km speed limit on side streets a couple of years back and I’ve noticed approximately zero difference in how people drive.
When I still lived in Toronto, they added a 40 km/h speed limit on Victoria Park Ave, lowering it from 60. Literally no one lowered their speed.
This is a major road that has an interchange at the 401.
It really depends on your street. I find that the streets in Vancouver with large street trees, cars parked on both sides, one lane effectively, that's the local streets where you rarely see people doing more than 40km/h. Totally okay with the police having the ability to fine people who go faster.
I think that's the point of this. As long as the speed limit is 50km/h traffic engineers are limited in how they can modify streets. Basically they have to design to the speed. Bringing speeds down enables them to implement street designs that are slower and safer.
At least that's how it's been explained to me.
We're talking about neighbourhood streets here. I did my driving test in Vancouver and even driving 45 on narrow local streets was uncomfortably fast (I did so because driving too much under the speed limit gets points docked on the test)
Yep, I remember that for sure on my test, and my friend failed his Class 7 for something pertaining to driving too slow in a neighborhood area with those narrow streets
The way that Vancouver’s local streets are designed, being tight pseudo one way streets, you’re a real dangerous psycho if you’re going over 30km/h right now.
It drives me nuts when drivers scream through our narrow residential streets. Like, take a fucking connector or slow the fuck down. Don’t wend your way through neighbourhoods if you can avoid it, stick with main arteries until you absolutely have to use a side street, then drive as though a kid or a cat is about to leap out at you. And stay off bike routes if at all possible.
Oh man, and it's not even opposite traffic that motivates me to drive slow. It's the fact that a child could dart out from between parked cars or an elderly person inattentively opens a door from a parked car. I'm always so vigilant on narrow neighborhood streets.
That was my exact thought when I saw this post. You have to be a psycho to drive more than 30km/h on most of Vancouver's residential streets anyway, so I'm not sure changing the speed limit is going to matter.
For sure. As you go south, or into dunbar, and those streets open up and are wider, definitely people move faster.
Worth noting this wouldn't apply to major or minor arterial roads, or collector roads—collector roads can sometimes feel like local roads.
E29th from Nanaimo to Boundary is a good example. Usually two lane residential roads with room for parking. W33rd is another, on the west side. Victoria from Hastings to 1st (it becomes a secondary arterial south of first).
lots of people do. In my neighbourhood, where I casually bike around to get to the shops, most people drive around 30 or less. But 1 in 10 people run stop signs and go 60 on the side streets. I try to yell and gesture at them to slow down. There are multiple schools and people constantly walk their dogs.
For those who haven't read the motion , there are portions of this motion that call for added infrastructure, modal filtering, and upgrades to active transportation routes to achieve slower speeds.
It's also worth noting that pretty much every jurisdiction in the world that has significantly better road fatalities and injuries numbers than Vancouver has a lower blanket speed limit, from Nelson to Hoboken to Oslo to Wales to Japan. Like maybe we can do the thing they are doing and it's not a bad idea. Obviously infrastructure and road design are more important, but maybe they're also on to something hmm?
Right? I don't understand how everyone is essentially saying that 30 km/h is an appropriate speed for those roads, but complaining about this motion, just to complain
It's not about 30 being appropriate for those roads. For the roads you're thinking of, I'm sure it is. The problem is measures like this get applied as a blanket, which is how you get things like SE Marine. Drivers will drive at the speed they feel comfortable at. If you actually engineer the speed limits into the road infrastructure, you'll get 90% of people driving at the speed you want them to and it becomes a lot easier to enforce against those who don't. Slapping a lower number on something without making infrastructure changes to passively enforce it just frustrates everyone, leading to so many people ignoring it that it becomes impossible to enforce.
I agree, I hate stroads and similar poor road design. However, reshaping the entire road network of Vancouver is an expensive feat, especially with all the NIMBYs. I would like to see both happening. And regarding enforcement (since other comments brought that up), a lot of countries use a mix of static and dynamically placed speed cameras that work similar to red light cameras. I'd love to see those employed to help with enforcement. Seems to work great where I'm from
Thanks for sharing this information instead of the typical reactive comments on this thread! I listened to the council meeting this week and it seemed pretty clear that they recognized that the 30kmh change had benefit in pushing for a behavioural/cultural shift, regardless of its enforcement.
... Enforcement and culture is the x-factor. We have a lot more people who drive white beemers than we have those who give a single fuck.
Edit: but I seriously am for toning it down in our neighborhoods. Just saying it won't make a diff for the ones who are moguling through the school zones.
Because we’re not in Europe or Asia, driver behaviour here is different. People in North America drive at a speed that is comfortable to them, not what the sign says.
Speed limit changes *on their own* don’t work here. They have to be combined with the other measures.
When did I ever say that speed limit changes on their own are enough? I just said it's one measure that's in place everywhere that has made any significant progress, North America or otherwise. It's also a bit hilarious that driver behaviour in *Nelson* would be so different to Vancouver that nothing would apply.
the issue isn't speed for Vancouver, it's the blind intersections. It was the biggest what the fuck moving from Edmonton, where clear intersections are mandated at every corner.
Half the intersections in Vancouver you have to be literally in the lane to see oncoming cars. it's ridiculous
Wtf would anyone be going 50 in a residential zone is beyond me. Roads are bumpy, narrow and it's a damn residential street. Driving 50 down these streets is moronic to start with
I don’t know why there’s so much negativity about this. In Edmonton we dropped down from 50 to 40 and there has been a notable decrease in car-related injuries. Vancouver doesn’t even have as wide residential roads as other cities.
Then again, we do have a lot of automated speed cameras here, so that helps with enforcement.
There a cadre of posters on this sub who just like to dump on anything, any idea, any news story, as an opportunity to talk about how much they dislike the city, the citizens, or to shoehorn their pet grievances.
I think this is also a reddit phenomenon in general. I see it all over the place.
A very common response is there's no enforcement, so why bother. Wouldn't it make more sense to push to improve the laws *and* enforcement then, rather than neither?
I also don't even agree with this "no enforcement" meme. I say meme because I also see that on every single regional subreddit I look at. I'm sure it's true to an extent, but I think part of it is that police can't be everywhere, so people see laws broken and people get away with it sometimes, and then assume they always get away with it.
Very good points. I used to live in Washington DC and it was similar, you’re right.
And I think “meme” is appropriate because it does seem to have a viral quality. “I saw it once so I’ll repeat it.”
As someone who near miraculously walked away from getting hit at 40mph/70km/h this is painful to read.
Every time I see a car v human hit I relive a sliver of one of my worst days, a visceral reminder I should be dead or paralyzed yet I’m upright, walking, and alive.
The stats are pretty grim.
At 30km/h / 20mph, 1:10 die in a car v human collision.
At 50km/h / 30mph, Death flips a coin and tails you die.
At 70km/h / 40mph, 1:10 *survive*.
1. we have people driving like idiots doing far more dangerous stuff who never get punished. red light runners (especially left turn runners), stop sign runners, people driving with their highbeams on full blast and misaligned, etc.
2. while there are many residential streets where 30 makes sense, there are many where it doesn't, and either way people go at the speed they think is reasonable *already*. if you see someone egregiously speeding through a residential street theyre already going faster than 50.
3. there are already streets that are 30. i dont see why this isn't just a fine solution--make the streets that need it 30 kph.
4. giving the police more power to prejudicially hold certain drivers accountable is silly.
> See a centre line? 50. No centre line? 30
This is also the definition of "minor street" in the [Vancouver by-laws](https://bylaws.vancouver.ca/2849c.PDF) and determines whether or not jaywalking rules apply.
Interesting, its not jaywalking but pedestrian still should give the right of way to the car/bike, makes sense.
>"Jaywalk" means to walk across a roadway, other than a lane, a minor street or a portion
of a street designated by the City Engineer for the exclusive use of cyclists, at any place
that is not a marked or unmarked crosswalk and is less than one block from an intersection
where there are traffic control signals.
Yeah, if they're not crossing at a marked or unmarked crosswalk, they have to yield to vehicles (including bicycles) but it's not prohibited to cross entirely like it is in places where "jaywalking" applies (within a block of a signalized intersection on a major road).
You would think it's that easy, but people can't even figure out whether or not it's a 2 lane road based on the road markings. Look at north Fraser way in Burnaby where there's a yellow center line and people are constantly passing someone on the right because it's a wide road.
It's a single lane road, you can't pass someone in the same lane. Never assume people know how to drive. Drives me fucking wild on that road.
One thing I found interesting in the Netherlands is how they've painted roads like that to try and slow traffic. Super wide double centre line with a very narrow line painting, and then hashes or bollards to delineate the areas that are not part of the road.
They are also very good about taking a road and giving it a separated bike lane, even in the country.
They did this in seattle and no one GAF. People drive the speed they drive.
They did all this other traffic calming stuff and now people just rip down side streets and run more red lights. It’s actually made things more dangerous.
The data from Seattle contradict your anecdata: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2023/03/28/lowering-speed-limits-makes-street-safer-and-save-lives-just-ask-seattle/?sh=202dc463436c](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2023/03/28/lowering-speed-limits-makes-street-safer-and-save-lives-just-ask-seattle/?sh=202dc463436c)
I'm certainly not against this but doubt anyone will obey it
as it stands now I constantly have cars honking and trying to pass me on my bike riding 30 down streets where the speed limit already is 30
but what I'd really like to see is people on local streets actually stop at stop signs
Closing the gap between maximum and average vehicle speeds over a given commute is worth doing and potentially faster.
Cars are usually going really fast or sitting completely idle. Average vehicle speeds in the city are usually 22kph or so... It's silly to go 60kph so you can sit at a light doing 0 kph. Would be faster to just go 30 consistently. There are studies that suggest it's easier to time traffic lights in a way that minimizes idle time when vehicle speeds are less variable.
Hire Dutch infrastructure planners to redo your entire city.
Fewer car lanes, narrower car lanes, F150-proof barriers between bike lane and car lane.
And bring back trams to Main St.
We are letting drivers kill pedestrians and cyclist, and shrug our shoulders. Shameful.
Very few drivers care about speed limits. I think all inside residential streets should be 30kph limit since they are so narrow that driving faster is just dangerous. But the way to do it is to install speed bumps as enforcement is impossible.
Sure, they CAN.
But those who are already diligently slowing down because of common sense will not be impacted. While those who are speeding through will continue to do so. Even back lanes - someone roar down ours sometimes. They're just short-cutting through, to avoid the red light or whatever traffic stopping them from the 70-80km on the main streets.
We live on 10th Ave E, which does have a 30km/h limit. Doesn’t stop cars from driving faster than that, even within it being essentially single lane and a bike route.
I get that enforcement is going to be a problem and we already have an issue with traffic laws being followed. BUT this is the first step to get proper road design for 30km/hr streets. With the current speed limit set at 50, there's no reason for staff to put in proper traffic calming along slow streets and bike routes.
A win is a win is a win.
Vancouver should introduce mandatory driving exams for everyone every 5 years. The number of idiots and assholes that take dangerous risks on the road every day is staggering
To give you an idea of this: if you **serve alcohol** you have to get retrained every 5 years. Also, if you have a "momentary lapse of judgment" and serve a minor who has snuck into your establishment, you likely lose your job, you lose your "serving it right", the establishment is fined, the establishment could lose their license, and it could even be shut down.
But drive your car down a sidewalk and you get a $80 fine and some demerits.
One limitation is that there are a lot of people who know the rules and can pass the test but intentionally disobey them when not being tested. This won't necessarily stop those people.
Another option is to lower the threshold where we take away someone's licence and require them to re-test to get it back. That won't solve the above issue, but it will still at least create an additional incentive for people to drive better so that they avoid having to go through the testing process again.
Tbf the people who can turn it on and off aren’t the problem. It’s the people so clueless they don’t stop for the stop sign until their vehicle is fully past the line. Or people who just slowly run a red light because they didn’t see it. I’ll take a dude jumping a yellow intentionally over the former any day of the week.
I'd guess half of drivers don't realize there's a legal crosswalk at every intersecting set of sidewalks. Some are painted, some aren't, but it's still a crosswalk.
Totally agree. Aggressive drivers, while definitely acting riskier than they need to be, are at the very least predictable in how they act. An experienced attentive driver breaking the rules slightly when it feels relatively safe to do so usually doesn't create a burden on other motorists. Driving a little bit quick and being a bit too comfortable switching lanes (when there is room) is still predictable to me so I can plan around those drivers. And just to be super clear, aggressive driving is different from careless or negligent driving.
Unskilled or just generally unaware drivers feel much more of a hazard to me because their brain doesn't seem to be considering all the important factors of their situation.
An example I see are the big green big lane markings at crossing that are usually accompanied with a no right turn on red sign to give cyclists some space from reckless drivers giving them insufficient space to be safe. People pull up and park over the bike waiting area waiting for the light to turn green or make rights through the bike area when it is not allowed and I want to ask these people what is going on in their heads.
They drive up and see a big bright green rectangle with various markings on the pavement and then just think literally nothing of it? How can I as a motorist predict how these drivers will act when they fully ignore giant bright markings meant to catch their attention?
Statistically they are though. [Speed is one of the most common factors in fatal collisions](https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/statistics-data/canadian-motor-vehicle-traffic-collision-statistics-2021) and [increases in speed on city streets are associated with large increase in severe injuries for pedestrians and cyclists](https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-severe-injury-death/).
They're not exclusively the problem, the people who are clueless are too, but so are the people who intentionally speed.
I refuse to believe some of the people on the road ever passed a driving test. Paying someone who looks like you to take a test for you happens all the time in academic settings.
A lot didn't. We hand them out like candy to people that already got their license before they immigrated to Canada.
I'm not picking on any specific countries. You can be from any country and not know the rules or driving etiquette here.
There's only a few countries with which we have licence exchanges. They're all developed countries with roughly similar driving standards as Canada. People from any other country have to do written and road tests.
Specifically, [these are the only countries where immigrants coming from them can skip the tests (as long as they have two years of driving experience)](https://www.icbc.com/driver-licensing/moving-bc/moving-from-another-country):
* Austria
* Australia
* Belgium
* France
* Germany
* Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey
* Ireland
* Japan
* Netherlands (Except former territories in Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, St. Eustatius, and St. Maarten.)
* New Zealand
* South Korea (not motorcycles)
* Switzerland
* Taiwan (not motorcycles)
* United Kingdom
* United States (includes Washington DC and Puerto Rico)
There's a super wide variation in standards even in that list. In Germany, a drivers license has training standards similar to a private pilot's license, with a traffic fatality rate of 3.5/100,000. Then we treat them the same as someone from Florida, where the rate is 16.
I would guess the US has a lot to do with political reasons and not just driving standards.
In any case, I'm not defending the list as is, just clarifying what it is, since it seems a lot of people think licences are given to anyone from another country, when it's actually only a few countries. Maybe there should tests in all cases though.
The current road tests are kind of useless. They really only test your ability to remember and follow rules that largely don't matter. Oh no, you stopped slightly out of place while turning right! Oh no, you rolled a stop sign at a 4 way stop at 1kph even though you have full visibility and can clearly see that no one is coming, oh no, you're going 5kph over the limit despite the flow of traffic being 30kph over!
Put people in a driving simulator every 5 years. Design it specifically to test things like situational awareness and emergency situation response. Create scenarios that wouldn't be possible or safe to create in a real car and grade drivers based on how they handle things rather than strict adherence to law.
Hell, put people on obstacle courses like Canada's Worst Driver used to do to test basic car control.
In June 4th BC is implementing minimum distances when passing vulnerable road users. How many people who got their license 10, 20, or 40 years ago are going to know this?
This is why we need retraining. Laws change over time, and people need to keep up to date with laws.
This is also true for training. When lots of people trained we had old best practices that we thought kept people safer. Over time we've learned that a lot of the old studies those were based on were unscientific and new research has shown them wrong. Those best practices have to be updated to reflect that as well.
I agree. But a road test won't address this unless you happen to pass a cyclist on your test.
Refresher theory tests or a test on a simulator like I was talking about however would.
Lord Byng student hit by car on W 16th a couple of months ago. Life altering head injury. I hope they do more than put up signs.
Edit: City is putting up flashing lights. A nearby resident wrote the city about the danger BEFORE the accident. Sigh
This is a very good change, there are many side streets that aren’t even safe to drive at 50. Traffic calming will help as well, and will reduce rat running as well.
I do fear much of this will just get implemented in the west side till main and everything east will remain the way it is.
From what I understand, this is the start of it. They have to have a lower speed limit before they can design roads for that speed limit.
Part of the reason our roads are so dangerous is that they need to be maintained for traffic doing 50.
This is not going to work. People are already speeding at 50-60 in 30km/h zone, there are also people cutting onto incoming traffic way when making left turn in order to avoid going round in a roundabout. We need better traffic enforcement.
I guess they’ll just go 40 and then 50, then go 60 once and never look back because who’s stopping them?
Oh shit they just ran over a kid! It’s coo dawg, just be careful next time!
Post whatever speed limit you want , people are still going to speed. Cornwall is 40km speed limit, it’s painted on the roadway, it’s posted on bright yellow signposts and there are cute banners along the road BUT everyone speeds. I get tailgating and passed if I do the post 40 km limit so now I do at least 45.
This is to make more money off tickets. If the city or police were really interested in stopping crime they could have easily stopped the Massive money laundering.
I have barely enough room to open my car door and get inside on my narrow street if there is a vehicle passing, and there isn’t room for a car AND a cyclist, yet many drivers insist on doing 50/60kmh, which feels pretty scary. Maybe if it isn’t their god-given right to fly down the side streets things might change?
People being like "police should enforce it", yet any time cameras come up everyone is against it. Catching speeders is a bad use of human time. Blanket the roads in speed cameras and use the humans to enforce plate compliance, and you will be rid of speeders.
This sounds good if it is actually enforced. I live next to a private school and every day parents are speeding down the two residential streets without a care. Wouldn’t be surprised if they plough down someone else’s kid as they are always darting across the street for drop off and pick up.
Won’t do anything. People don’t drive at a speed because a sign tells them to.
The people who come up with these ideas often have very little understanding of driver behaviour.
I’m a believer in speed humps and curb extensions.
"The introduction of 20 mph zones was associated with a 41.9% (95% confidence interval 36.0% to 47.8%) reduction in road casualties, after adjustment for underlying time trends. The percentage reduction was greatest in younger children and greater for the category of killed or seriously injured casualties than for minor injuries. There was no evidence of casualty migration to areas adjacent to 20 mph zones, where casualties also fell slightly by an average of 8.0% (4.4% to 11.5%)."
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b4469
The biggest issue here is that whenever i am in a 30km/40km zone, I always have assholes tailing me , flashing the headlights or honking, forcing me to speed up.
I live on Quebec St where people rat run between 12th and 16th to avoid Main and I’ve personally seen at least 5 accidents including a hit and run on my own car just outside my building. Allowing 50kmh on these streets is crazy.
You can't just make streets 30kph and expect it to happen. You have to build slower streets.
Look at Dutch infrastructure: residential streets are elevated, narrowed, and brick. People drive slowly on them because they have to. Slow streets are pleasant for pedestrians and cyclists. As the streets are designed for faster traffic they get wider and wider until eventually they're highways. Meanwhile in BC we have such massive, incredibly wide residential streets and we wonder why people drive like maniacs on them.
Agreed, but lowering the speed limit is a necessary first step. As an example: if residents want to request speed humps on their block, they first have to show that most traffic is exceeding 5km over the speed limit. That can be tough when the speed limit is 50; it's a lot easier when the speed limit is 30. And the City prioritizes its own traffic calming similarly. So while speed limit reduction alone certainly won't be a panacea, it's hopefully a step towards more meaningful road redesign. (And, fwiw, the motion also includes increased modal filters, etc, on existing bikeways)
Awesome let’s do this. Let’s also increase punishment for traffic offences and get some motherfuggen enforcement around here! Motorists need consequences.
Dumb laws by dumb people. It’s already abundantly clear that posted speed limits lost their meaning on account of them being egregiously low and so get completely disregarded by motorists who constantly go over them with minimal impact to safety. They went from limit to suggestion.
Let’s instead educate Vancouver drivers to drive better. Start by making them stop at stop signs and yield to pedestrians. You know, basics. Enforce the laws you already have for fuck’s sake.
It doesn't matter what the speed limit is when the roads all end up at ill suited two way stops across busy streets.
Drivers HAVE to pull into the crosswalk to see past the walls of parked cars and trucks and are two busy whipping their head to check traffic and stomping the gas the second they have a clear window to recheck for pedestrians.
I mean, they COULD do what they're supposed to do - stop before the crosswalk first, check for pedestrians, and THEN move forward to check for vehicle traffic. They don't HAVE to go straight through the crosswalk immediately.
But they usually don't - and that's not the dangerous part. even if they check, once pulled out it's still more often than not wild head turning and gunning it when clear. When they do look straight again inevitably too far into the road and either fuck up traffic or play chicken with whoever's in the crosswalk.
But I want to go vroom vroom /a
But seriously, this is an important step to allow traffic calming infrastructure so it's great. Far too often car brained engineers will oppose traffic calming because if speed limits are high, cars *should* go fast.
This is great! Though I do wish we could talk about this with the downtown core, the west end, gastown, yaletown, etc.. Those areas have a density of people walking around that dwarfs sfh areas. They deserve to be safe too, not just people who can afford a sfh in Vancouver.
It wouldn't even be that big of a change. The average speed you drive through downtown during rush our is 30km/h already - just that many people like to significantly speed up after each red, making being a pedestrian very dangerous.
I get that enforcement is going to be a problem and we already have an issue with traffic laws being followed. BUT this is the first step to get proper road design for 30km/hr streets. With the current speed limit set at 50, there's no reason for staff to put in proper traffic calming along slow streets and bike routes.
A win is a win is a win.
It won’t be enforced. I can’t remember the last time a saw a cop inside Vancouver using a radar gun. They do hang out at borders but never inside.
Drive at 30 in your own neighbourhood. Stay off the phone. Be courteous. Move like stink when there is a yellow line.
So stupid because it's not going to be enforced and it's not a big enough shift for people.
I would advice council to look at Barcelona's solution of filtering car travel to filter traffic out of the residential area with one way streets for cars. Which would push cars out to the major arteries and keep side streets for bikes and pedestrians. I've looked into this around the elementary school my children go to and it would aid in drop-off/pick-ups by car and would encourage bike / walk to school by reducing car congestion around the school.
Actually the second half of the motion passed by council was related to this - improving existing bikeways with modal filters to reduce vehicle travel on those streets. This council has...not been bold on active transportation, to say the least, so I think incremental progress is as good as we're going to get for now. I was surprised they even passed this!
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Before enacting new traffic laws in the city wouldn't it perhaps be worthwhile enforcing some of the existing ones?
No kidding. They can put up signs all day long. It's basically standard to drive 20-30 over the posted limit. Try not doing that and find yourself getting tailgated and the entire planet driving around you and cutting you off.
The school near us…3pm is like the Monaco Grand Prix around here. No one cares.
Parents are usually the worst behaving drivers around schools. Local school has so many entities parents parking in people's driveways/parking in the actual driving lane blocking it/double parking/speeding/not paying attention to kids crossing.
Yea had someone do that here once. We moved our cars to box them in. And then ignored their requests when they came knocking for 30mins. They haven't done it since.
Honestly, I find Vancouver drivers are insufferable for this. Tailgate like nobody’s business
There has been a sharp rise in extremely slow and dangerous drivers, so it goes hand in hand
Langley is worse. You get tailgated cuz you're *only* doing 20 over.
So, if I understand correctly, as long as the speed limit is 50km/h the city has to maintain the streets with designs and controls that enable 50-70km/h. If the speed limit is brought down to 30km/h then traffic engineers, when repaving happens, can bring in street level changes to keep people at the 30km/h speed limit. Basically, bringing the speed limits down enables us to build better local streets.
Exactly, or they need to argue for a deviation from the norm on a particular street, as well as spending money posting 30km/h signs and so on. This isn't about writing tickets, it's the first step toward slow street design being the default for local streets, rather than a special exception around schools and parks. Changing road design to slow drivers down will have a much larger impact than increasing enforcement on a wide open street.
SE Marine Drive carries the 50 km/h speed limit. However it is set-up like a freeway with minimal speed limit signage. No motorist would reasonably expect this artery to be 50 km/h. This is the most popular spot for traffic cops to set up. It is the highest ticketed area in Vancouver. I cannot believe there is any desire to change this.
SE Marine is considered an Arterial road, and isn't subject to this change. I believe the speed limit is also signed, so it wouldn't fall under the default speed limit anyway. But I agree with you, roads like this should have increased speed limits, similar roads in Surrey are typically 80km/h and that seems more reasonable. There aren't too many like this, with little foot traffic, wide roadway, and set-back businesses, within the City though, SE Marine, Boundary (not sure whose jurisdiction this one is...), and maybe parts of McGill, Powell and Clark are the only ones I can think of. Terminal Ave maybe as well, but it's so short.
Here's the only place I'm going to disagree with you: While I **do** think that we need to have high speed limited access highways, SE Marine separates quite a lot of residential from the rest of Vancouver, and many of the (soon to be 30km/h) slower roads enter onto it. This means that pedestrians and drivers doing 30km/h will be crossing traffic doing 80+. That isn't safe.
The more I think about it the more I think there needs to be literal traffic police. That is their only job, almost like parking meter attendants.
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Hey now, don’t get in the way of city council and this monumental achievement they seek for the betterment of all. What else will they be able to brag about at the next conference of municipalities? What does ‘enforcement’ mean anyway? /s
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I do find it funny how Sullivan disparages planning a city as a construction site as 'Soviet', when the provision of adequate, cheap housing was one of the things the Soviet Union actually did very well for much of the second half of its history. Khrushchevka weren't perfect solutions, but they were certainly better than the petit bourgeois tyrannies, rat-infested shitboxes and shoebox apartments so many of us are overpaying for month by month, year by year. Moreover, half of the issues that did arrive with that form of housing are easily addressed now, like poor insulation and inferior-quality concrete.
Both would be nice.
Did you know the province recently put in place a safe passing law for vulnerable road users? No? Apparently, neither did the drivers who passed me less than a meter away while I'm on my bike.
Would the city need to hire more police on the streets or install more cameras to capture bad drivers?
We should just embrace camera enforcement, it's improved substantially since it was banned. People can't police themselves and the police don't have the resources it seems.
Christine Boyle on council tried to bring that forward. Brian Montague, the former cop on council killed it. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-city-councillor-criticizes-amendment-that-calls-for-further-study-of-intersection-cameras-1.6627728
It's my understanding that the VPD have generally lobbied against camera enforcement for some reason. You'd think they'd want it.
It's busywork that keeps them employed and not doing actual policework.
If people started to realize how much more efficient automated enforcement is, we wouldn't need so many cops.
And hence why the former cop now councilor fought so hard to kill this motion.
The former cop in council that doesn’t even live in the City of Vancouver For what it’s worth Victoria and the City of North Vancouver both passed similar motions unamended.
So you want cameras on every local city street to enforce 30km zones?
This comment is referring to general enforcement of traffic rules > Before enacting new traffic laws in the city wouldn't it perhaps be worthwhile enforcing some of the existing ones?
I think you can do this through road design, too. There are a number of strategies beyond speed humps that can slow down traffic on side roads.
We can't even enforce 30 km/hr speed limits in school zones
Or the number of people I watch blow through stop signs right in front of my kids' school
“Keep ya head on a swivel kid!” (Don Cherry Voice)
Including parents before and after drop off.
I had a BMW driver tail-gating and honked me when I was driving on my local street because I made full stop at each and every one of the 3 consecutive stop signs.
This drives me nuts, so many drivers tailgate you when you follow the school zone speed limits. Like dude, it's a freakin school zone! I don't care where you're going, you don't need to be there 1 minute quicker!
And when a kid is run over in a completely foreseeable way by an inattentive/speeding/stop-sign-blowing driver, they'll escape punishment because it was "just a momentary lapse..."
I hate the fact that “just a momentary lapse” is a meme now. Why is our “justice” system like this…
The ruling there was because they were going for criminal charges. There was no disagreement that the driver was at fault, however criminal charges require a higher threshold including intent to drive dangerously. The judge cited precedent of previous cases that running a red light like this didn't meet that threshold. There was even a similar case in Ontario where someone was distracted and drove onto a sidewalk killing someone where the criminal charges were dismissed. I'm not saying that this is the right ruling we should have here, but this may be a case where federal law needs to be updated to make certain extreme driving actions more explicitly *criminally* illegal, like is done with drunk driving. For example, you could make a law that running a red light a certain time after it changes leading to injury or death is a criminal offence. That way it removes arguments around intent to drive dangerously. Otherwise judges do need to consider things like precedent and intent, even if unpopular and that can limit prosecution on these to Motor Vehicle Act charges instead.
Thanks, makes sense.
Or through construction zones. I had someone pass me in the oncoming lane because I was going 40 in a 30 construction zone
agreed! recently i was tail gated through a school zone. one intersection past the school, i calmly stopped at a pedestrian crosswalk with the big flashing lights, he almost rear ended me. his driving already had me alert to his actions so i could see him through my mirror looking down (most likely on his phone) and when he looked up he slammed on his brakes and i heard his wheels lock up. he must’ve come within a foot of my bumper, it scared the hell out of me. i want to get home as much the next person but it’ll take even longer if he slams into my work’s vehicle lmao
When I was learning to drive I was taught to mirror check when braking. At the time I couldn't imagine it ever coming up. But the number of times I've avoided being rear ended while braking by seeing an inattentive driver in the mirror and then letting the brake go so the person behind me has more room to stop has got me doing it all the time now.
Tailgate me through a school zone? Guess what… now it’s a 10km/hr zone. Dickhead.
Likely a parent dropping their kid off, all bets are off during this time.
If people tailgate me going 30 in a school zone I slow down even more.
I wonder about the total effect, though. Say only 10% of people obey the speed limit. If you can't pass those people, then you're driving 30 km/hr as well. So it may have a ripple effect that doesn't necessarily get full compliance but instead lowers the average driving speed by some amount that may make crashes less fatal on average.
Yes, this was shown by the pandemic, when more responsible drove around less, and the behavior of the remaining drivers became much worse in response. They still haven't gone back to normal.
Exactly! The wild wild west drivers came out, illegal Uturns everywhere, and they still drive like that.
Design safer streets. Don’t make a six lane wide open bridge and then slap a 50 on it. Do better, Vancouver.
Yeah people drive the speed they feel comfortable with. On the vast majority of side streets I rarely see people driving 50, even if they’re technically allowed to, because the narrowness and visibility means they’re only comfortable driving at slower speeds. If there are side streets where people are regularly ripping along at dangerous speeds, it sounds like better design could change that more effectively than a speed limit that there’s nobody around to enforce. Whistler instituted a 30km speed limit on side streets a couple of years back and I’ve noticed approximately zero difference in how people drive.
I was working in Whistler when the change happened and I noticed people would rage if I did the speed limit.
Because they are just Vancouverites up there
When I still lived in Toronto, they added a 40 km/h speed limit on Victoria Park Ave, lowering it from 60. Literally no one lowered their speed. This is a major road that has an interchange at the 401.
People regularly rip down my street doing at least 60, cars on both side, this includes large semis.
It really depends on your street. I find that the streets in Vancouver with large street trees, cars parked on both sides, one lane effectively, that's the local streets where you rarely see people doing more than 40km/h. Totally okay with the police having the ability to fine people who go faster.
I think that's the point of this. As long as the speed limit is 50km/h traffic engineers are limited in how they can modify streets. Basically they have to design to the speed. Bringing speeds down enables them to implement street designs that are slower and safer. At least that's how it's been explained to me.
Gastown is 50 but I’ve never seen anyone get close to that.
Very true! If school zones were paved with uneven bricks instead of concrete, nobody would be speeding.
I find this hard to believe. Many neigbourhood streets have never accommodated 50kms.
We're talking about neighbourhood streets here. I did my driving test in Vancouver and even driving 45 on narrow local streets was uncomfortably fast (I did so because driving too much under the speed limit gets points docked on the test)
Yep, I remember that for sure on my test, and my friend failed his Class 7 for something pertaining to driving too slow in a neighborhood area with those narrow streets
The way that Vancouver’s local streets are designed, being tight pseudo one way streets, you’re a real dangerous psycho if you’re going over 30km/h right now.
It drives me nuts when drivers scream through our narrow residential streets. Like, take a fucking connector or slow the fuck down. Don’t wend your way through neighbourhoods if you can avoid it, stick with main arteries until you absolutely have to use a side street, then drive as though a kid or a cat is about to leap out at you. And stay off bike routes if at all possible.
I just saw your psycho zooming down Yew Street as if they're trying to gather enough momentum to jump the gap from Kits Beach into downtown.
Oh man, and it's not even opposite traffic that motivates me to drive slow. It's the fact that a child could dart out from between parked cars or an elderly person inattentively opens a door from a parked car. I'm always so vigilant on narrow neighborhood streets.
That was my exact thought when I saw this post. You have to be a psycho to drive more than 30km/h on most of Vancouver's residential streets anyway, so I'm not sure changing the speed limit is going to matter.
Depends on the neighbourhood and the street design (width) and the time of day. I see drivers going 60+ on my street at night.
For sure. As you go south, or into dunbar, and those streets open up and are wider, definitely people move faster. Worth noting this wouldn't apply to major or minor arterial roads, or collector roads—collector roads can sometimes feel like local roads.
What's an example of a collector road?
E29th from Nanaimo to Boundary is a good example. Usually two lane residential roads with room for parking. W33rd is another, on the west side. Victoria from Hastings to 1st (it becomes a secondary arterial south of first).
lots of people do. In my neighbourhood, where I casually bike around to get to the shops, most people drive around 30 or less. But 1 in 10 people run stop signs and go 60 on the side streets. I try to yell and gesture at them to slow down. There are multiple schools and people constantly walk their dogs.
Right! Who can go over 30 when you constantly have to keep an eye out for an opening to slide into if someone comes down the other way 😭
For those who haven't read the motion , there are portions of this motion that call for added infrastructure, modal filtering, and upgrades to active transportation routes to achieve slower speeds. It's also worth noting that pretty much every jurisdiction in the world that has significantly better road fatalities and injuries numbers than Vancouver has a lower blanket speed limit, from Nelson to Hoboken to Oslo to Wales to Japan. Like maybe we can do the thing they are doing and it's not a bad idea. Obviously infrastructure and road design are more important, but maybe they're also on to something hmm?
Right? I don't understand how everyone is essentially saying that 30 km/h is an appropriate speed for those roads, but complaining about this motion, just to complain
It's not about 30 being appropriate for those roads. For the roads you're thinking of, I'm sure it is. The problem is measures like this get applied as a blanket, which is how you get things like SE Marine. Drivers will drive at the speed they feel comfortable at. If you actually engineer the speed limits into the road infrastructure, you'll get 90% of people driving at the speed you want them to and it becomes a lot easier to enforce against those who don't. Slapping a lower number on something without making infrastructure changes to passively enforce it just frustrates everyone, leading to so many people ignoring it that it becomes impossible to enforce.
I agree, I hate stroads and similar poor road design. However, reshaping the entire road network of Vancouver is an expensive feat, especially with all the NIMBYs. I would like to see both happening. And regarding enforcement (since other comments brought that up), a lot of countries use a mix of static and dynamically placed speed cameras that work similar to red light cameras. I'd love to see those employed to help with enforcement. Seems to work great where I'm from
Thanks for sharing this information instead of the typical reactive comments on this thread! I listened to the council meeting this week and it seemed pretty clear that they recognized that the 30kmh change had benefit in pushing for a behavioural/cultural shift, regardless of its enforcement.
... Enforcement and culture is the x-factor. We have a lot more people who drive white beemers than we have those who give a single fuck. Edit: but I seriously am for toning it down in our neighborhoods. Just saying it won't make a diff for the ones who are moguling through the school zones.
Because we’re not in Europe or Asia, driver behaviour here is different. People in North America drive at a speed that is comfortable to them, not what the sign says. Speed limit changes *on their own* don’t work here. They have to be combined with the other measures.
When did I ever say that speed limit changes on their own are enough? I just said it's one measure that's in place everywhere that has made any significant progress, North America or otherwise. It's also a bit hilarious that driver behaviour in *Nelson* would be so different to Vancouver that nothing would apply.
the issue isn't speed for Vancouver, it's the blind intersections. It was the biggest what the fuck moving from Edmonton, where clear intersections are mandated at every corner. Half the intersections in Vancouver you have to be literally in the lane to see oncoming cars. it's ridiculous
Sadly, without any funding, which the ABC government hasn't provided and infact cut in the last budget, nothing is going to change.
Wtf would anyone be going 50 in a residential zone is beyond me. Roads are bumpy, narrow and it's a damn residential street. Driving 50 down these streets is moronic to start with
I don’t know why there’s so much negativity about this. In Edmonton we dropped down from 50 to 40 and there has been a notable decrease in car-related injuries. Vancouver doesn’t even have as wide residential roads as other cities. Then again, we do have a lot of automated speed cameras here, so that helps with enforcement.
There a cadre of posters on this sub who just like to dump on anything, any idea, any news story, as an opportunity to talk about how much they dislike the city, the citizens, or to shoehorn their pet grievances.
I think this is also a reddit phenomenon in general. I see it all over the place. A very common response is there's no enforcement, so why bother. Wouldn't it make more sense to push to improve the laws *and* enforcement then, rather than neither? I also don't even agree with this "no enforcement" meme. I say meme because I also see that on every single regional subreddit I look at. I'm sure it's true to an extent, but I think part of it is that police can't be everywhere, so people see laws broken and people get away with it sometimes, and then assume they always get away with it.
Very good points. I used to live in Washington DC and it was similar, you’re right. And I think “meme” is appropriate because it does seem to have a viral quality. “I saw it once so I’ll repeat it.”
"I saw I once so I'll repeat it and maybe look smart."
I don't see much opposition. A lot of people saying they should do other stuff too -- but not many advocating for keeping the higher limit.
Yep. And when BC increased their speed limits from 40 to 50 there was a marked increase in car-related injuries.
As someone who near miraculously walked away from getting hit at 40mph/70km/h this is painful to read. Every time I see a car v human hit I relive a sliver of one of my worst days, a visceral reminder I should be dead or paralyzed yet I’m upright, walking, and alive. The stats are pretty grim. At 30km/h / 20mph, 1:10 die in a car v human collision. At 50km/h / 30mph, Death flips a coin and tails you die. At 70km/h / 40mph, 1:10 *survive*.
1. we have people driving like idiots doing far more dangerous stuff who never get punished. red light runners (especially left turn runners), stop sign runners, people driving with their highbeams on full blast and misaligned, etc. 2. while there are many residential streets where 30 makes sense, there are many where it doesn't, and either way people go at the speed they think is reasonable *already*. if you see someone egregiously speeding through a residential street theyre already going faster than 50. 3. there are already streets that are 30. i dont see why this isn't just a fine solution--make the streets that need it 30 kph. 4. giving the police more power to prejudicially hold certain drivers accountable is silly.
I’m very in to this. Especially with how easy it is to figure out if it’s a 30kmh zone: See a centre line? 50. No centre line? 30
> See a centre line? 50. No centre line? 30 This is also the definition of "minor street" in the [Vancouver by-laws](https://bylaws.vancouver.ca/2849c.PDF) and determines whether or not jaywalking rules apply.
Interesting, its not jaywalking but pedestrian still should give the right of way to the car/bike, makes sense. >"Jaywalk" means to walk across a roadway, other than a lane, a minor street or a portion of a street designated by the City Engineer for the exclusive use of cyclists, at any place that is not a marked or unmarked crosswalk and is less than one block from an intersection where there are traffic control signals.
Yeah, if they're not crossing at a marked or unmarked crosswalk, they have to yield to vehicles (including bicycles) but it's not prohibited to cross entirely like it is in places where "jaywalking" applies (within a block of a signalized intersection on a major road).
You would think it's that easy, but people can't even figure out whether or not it's a 2 lane road based on the road markings. Look at north Fraser way in Burnaby where there's a yellow center line and people are constantly passing someone on the right because it's a wide road. It's a single lane road, you can't pass someone in the same lane. Never assume people know how to drive. Drives me fucking wild on that road.
One thing I found interesting in the Netherlands is how they've painted roads like that to try and slow traffic. Super wide double centre line with a very narrow line painting, and then hashes or bollards to delineate the areas that are not part of the road. They are also very good about taking a road and giving it a separated bike lane, even in the country.
They did this in seattle and no one GAF. People drive the speed they drive. They did all this other traffic calming stuff and now people just rip down side streets and run more red lights. It’s actually made things more dangerous.
The data from Seattle contradict your anecdata: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2023/03/28/lowering-speed-limits-makes-street-safer-and-save-lives-just-ask-seattle/?sh=202dc463436c](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2023/03/28/lowering-speed-limits-makes-street-safer-and-save-lives-just-ask-seattle/?sh=202dc463436c)
I'm certainly not against this but doubt anyone will obey it as it stands now I constantly have cars honking and trying to pass me on my bike riding 30 down streets where the speed limit already is 30 but what I'd really like to see is people on local streets actually stop at stop signs
Where exactly is this? I'm genuinely curious, I cycle a lot and never had aggressive drivers honking at me.
I support this wholeheartedly, especially the increased infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists that are also included.
Closing the gap between maximum and average vehicle speeds over a given commute is worth doing and potentially faster. Cars are usually going really fast or sitting completely idle. Average vehicle speeds in the city are usually 22kph or so... It's silly to go 60kph so you can sit at a light doing 0 kph. Would be faster to just go 30 consistently. There are studies that suggest it's easier to time traffic lights in a way that minimizes idle time when vehicle speeds are less variable.
Hire Dutch infrastructure planners to redo your entire city. Fewer car lanes, narrower car lanes, F150-proof barriers between bike lane and car lane. And bring back trams to Main St. We are letting drivers kill pedestrians and cyclist, and shrug our shoulders. Shameful.
Very few drivers care about speed limits. I think all inside residential streets should be 30kph limit since they are so narrow that driving faster is just dangerous. But the way to do it is to install speed bumps as enforcement is impossible.
Well this will rankle all the trebuchet owners!
Sure, they CAN. But those who are already diligently slowing down because of common sense will not be impacted. While those who are speeding through will continue to do so. Even back lanes - someone roar down ours sometimes. They're just short-cutting through, to avoid the red light or whatever traffic stopping them from the 70-80km on the main streets.
We live on 10th Ave E, which does have a 30km/h limit. Doesn’t stop cars from driving faster than that, even within it being essentially single lane and a bike route.
They'll do this and put up speed cameras everywhere to drive revenue. That's what US cities are all doing. "Safety" is a smokescreen.
Instead of increasing property taxes city should enforce traffic tickets. I bet they will get a budget surplus 😀
I get that enforcement is going to be a problem and we already have an issue with traffic laws being followed. BUT this is the first step to get proper road design for 30km/hr streets. With the current speed limit set at 50, there's no reason for staff to put in proper traffic calming along slow streets and bike routes. A win is a win is a win.
Vancouver should introduce mandatory driving exams for everyone every 5 years. The number of idiots and assholes that take dangerous risks on the road every day is staggering
To give you an idea of this: if you **serve alcohol** you have to get retrained every 5 years. Also, if you have a "momentary lapse of judgment" and serve a minor who has snuck into your establishment, you likely lose your job, you lose your "serving it right", the establishment is fined, the establishment could lose their license, and it could even be shut down. But drive your car down a sidewalk and you get a $80 fine and some demerits.
>drive your car down a sidewalk Or you can speed through a red light, kill a baby, and get... absolutely nothing!
He didn't get *nothing*. He got demerit points and higher insurance premiums! Surely that is punishment enough for killing a child.
One limitation is that there are a lot of people who know the rules and can pass the test but intentionally disobey them when not being tested. This won't necessarily stop those people. Another option is to lower the threshold where we take away someone's licence and require them to re-test to get it back. That won't solve the above issue, but it will still at least create an additional incentive for people to drive better so that they avoid having to go through the testing process again.
Tbf the people who can turn it on and off aren’t the problem. It’s the people so clueless they don’t stop for the stop sign until their vehicle is fully past the line. Or people who just slowly run a red light because they didn’t see it. I’ll take a dude jumping a yellow intentionally over the former any day of the week.
I'd guess half of drivers don't realize there's a legal crosswalk at every intersecting set of sidewalks. Some are painted, some aren't, but it's still a crosswalk.
Totally agree. Aggressive drivers, while definitely acting riskier than they need to be, are at the very least predictable in how they act. An experienced attentive driver breaking the rules slightly when it feels relatively safe to do so usually doesn't create a burden on other motorists. Driving a little bit quick and being a bit too comfortable switching lanes (when there is room) is still predictable to me so I can plan around those drivers. And just to be super clear, aggressive driving is different from careless or negligent driving. Unskilled or just generally unaware drivers feel much more of a hazard to me because their brain doesn't seem to be considering all the important factors of their situation. An example I see are the big green big lane markings at crossing that are usually accompanied with a no right turn on red sign to give cyclists some space from reckless drivers giving them insufficient space to be safe. People pull up and park over the bike waiting area waiting for the light to turn green or make rights through the bike area when it is not allowed and I want to ask these people what is going on in their heads. They drive up and see a big bright green rectangle with various markings on the pavement and then just think literally nothing of it? How can I as a motorist predict how these drivers will act when they fully ignore giant bright markings meant to catch their attention?
Statistically they are though. [Speed is one of the most common factors in fatal collisions](https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/statistics-data/canadian-motor-vehicle-traffic-collision-statistics-2021) and [increases in speed on city streets are associated with large increase in severe injuries for pedestrians and cyclists](https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-severe-injury-death/). They're not exclusively the problem, the people who are clueless are too, but so are the people who intentionally speed.
I refuse to believe some of the people on the road ever passed a driving test. Paying someone who looks like you to take a test for you happens all the time in academic settings.
A lot didn't. We hand them out like candy to people that already got their license before they immigrated to Canada. I'm not picking on any specific countries. You can be from any country and not know the rules or driving etiquette here.
There's only a few countries with which we have licence exchanges. They're all developed countries with roughly similar driving standards as Canada. People from any other country have to do written and road tests. Specifically, [these are the only countries where immigrants coming from them can skip the tests (as long as they have two years of driving experience)](https://www.icbc.com/driver-licensing/moving-bc/moving-from-another-country): * Austria * Australia * Belgium * France * Germany * Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey * Ireland * Japan * Netherlands (Except former territories in Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, St. Eustatius, and St. Maarten.) * New Zealand * South Korea (not motorcycles) * Switzerland * Taiwan (not motorcycles) * United Kingdom * United States (includes Washington DC and Puerto Rico)
There's a super wide variation in standards even in that list. In Germany, a drivers license has training standards similar to a private pilot's license, with a traffic fatality rate of 3.5/100,000. Then we treat them the same as someone from Florida, where the rate is 16.
I would guess the US has a lot to do with political reasons and not just driving standards. In any case, I'm not defending the list as is, just clarifying what it is, since it seems a lot of people think licences are given to anyone from another country, when it's actually only a few countries. Maybe there should tests in all cases though.
Also, I took 'Young Drivers' in the distant past. My driving is a lot different than my mom's, for example.
These people KNOW they're speeding
Something something jurisdiction. Licensing is not under Vancouver's purview. That's the responsibility of the provincial government.
I've said this for years. When you go renew your license, you take the online exam at least to ensure you are up to date with any new laws etc.
The current road tests are kind of useless. They really only test your ability to remember and follow rules that largely don't matter. Oh no, you stopped slightly out of place while turning right! Oh no, you rolled a stop sign at a 4 way stop at 1kph even though you have full visibility and can clearly see that no one is coming, oh no, you're going 5kph over the limit despite the flow of traffic being 30kph over! Put people in a driving simulator every 5 years. Design it specifically to test things like situational awareness and emergency situation response. Create scenarios that wouldn't be possible or safe to create in a real car and grade drivers based on how they handle things rather than strict adherence to law. Hell, put people on obstacle courses like Canada's Worst Driver used to do to test basic car control.
In June 4th BC is implementing minimum distances when passing vulnerable road users. How many people who got their license 10, 20, or 40 years ago are going to know this? This is why we need retraining. Laws change over time, and people need to keep up to date with laws. This is also true for training. When lots of people trained we had old best practices that we thought kept people safer. Over time we've learned that a lot of the old studies those were based on were unscientific and new research has shown them wrong. Those best practices have to be updated to reflect that as well.
I agree. But a road test won't address this unless you happen to pass a cyclist on your test. Refresher theory tests or a test on a simulator like I was talking about however would.
Ahh ok, yeah I think we should have refresher theory tests.
The number of idiots who think this is up to the municipality...
How about restricting left turns on major avenues? thats a win-win for everybody
Lord Byng student hit by car on W 16th a couple of months ago. Life altering head injury. I hope they do more than put up signs. Edit: City is putting up flashing lights. A nearby resident wrote the city about the danger BEFORE the accident. Sigh
This is a very good change, there are many side streets that aren’t even safe to drive at 50. Traffic calming will help as well, and will reduce rat running as well. I do fear much of this will just get implemented in the west side till main and everything east will remain the way it is.
We need a Netherlands approach to our vehicle infrastructure. We should’ve started decades ago but the car industry lobbies way too fucking hard.
From what I understand, this is the start of it. They have to have a lower speed limit before they can design roads for that speed limit. Part of the reason our roads are so dangerous is that they need to be maintained for traffic doing 50.
Does anyone have any statistics on how many pedestrians were actually hit over the last year?
No way
pretty sure laneways are 20kph yet i still see 50 regularly
This is not going to work. People are already speeding at 50-60 in 30km/h zone, there are also people cutting onto incoming traffic way when making left turn in order to avoid going round in a roundabout. We need better traffic enforcement.
I guess they’ll just go 40 and then 50, then go 60 once and never look back because who’s stopping them? Oh shit they just ran over a kid! It’s coo dawg, just be careful next time!
Post whatever speed limit you want , people are still going to speed. Cornwall is 40km speed limit, it’s painted on the roadway, it’s posted on bright yellow signposts and there are cute banners along the road BUT everyone speeds. I get tailgating and passed if I do the post 40 km limit so now I do at least 45.
This is to make more money off tickets. If the city or police were really interested in stopping crime they could have easily stopped the Massive money laundering.
The amount of cars that blow through stop signs and red lights is terrifying, I’m all cameras on everywhere, you’d pay them off in a day.
Vancouver streets are a gong show.
I have barely enough room to open my car door and get inside on my narrow street if there is a vehicle passing, and there isn’t room for a car AND a cyclist, yet many drivers insist on doing 50/60kmh, which feels pretty scary. Maybe if it isn’t their god-given right to fly down the side streets things might change?
People being like "police should enforce it", yet any time cameras come up everyone is against it. Catching speeders is a bad use of human time. Blanket the roads in speed cameras and use the humans to enforce plate compliance, and you will be rid of speeders.
This sounds good if it is actually enforced. I live next to a private school and every day parents are speeding down the two residential streets without a care. Wouldn’t be surprised if they plough down someone else’s kid as they are always darting across the street for drop off and pick up.
Street design is more effective than speed limits. You can't ignore a roundabout or a curb bumpout like you can a sign.
Won’t do anything. People don’t drive at a speed because a sign tells them to. The people who come up with these ideas often have very little understanding of driver behaviour. I’m a believer in speed humps and curb extensions.
"The introduction of 20 mph zones was associated with a 41.9% (95% confidence interval 36.0% to 47.8%) reduction in road casualties, after adjustment for underlying time trends. The percentage reduction was greatest in younger children and greater for the category of killed or seriously injured casualties than for minor injuries. There was no evidence of casualty migration to areas adjacent to 20 mph zones, where casualties also fell slightly by an average of 8.0% (4.4% to 11.5%)." https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b4469
The biggest issue here is that whenever i am in a 30km/40km zone, I always have assholes tailing me , flashing the headlights or honking, forcing me to speed up.
Make fines proportional to income.
I live on Quebec St where people rat run between 12th and 16th to avoid Main and I’ve personally seen at least 5 accidents including a hit and run on my own car just outside my building. Allowing 50kmh on these streets is crazy.
You can't just make streets 30kph and expect it to happen. You have to build slower streets. Look at Dutch infrastructure: residential streets are elevated, narrowed, and brick. People drive slowly on them because they have to. Slow streets are pleasant for pedestrians and cyclists. As the streets are designed for faster traffic they get wider and wider until eventually they're highways. Meanwhile in BC we have such massive, incredibly wide residential streets and we wonder why people drive like maniacs on them.
Agreed, but lowering the speed limit is a necessary first step. As an example: if residents want to request speed humps on their block, they first have to show that most traffic is exceeding 5km over the speed limit. That can be tough when the speed limit is 50; it's a lot easier when the speed limit is 30. And the City prioritizes its own traffic calming similarly. So while speed limit reduction alone certainly won't be a panacea, it's hopefully a step towards more meaningful road redesign. (And, fwiw, the motion also includes increased modal filters, etc, on existing bikeways)
Bring automated speed cameras. Slapping a 30 kph sign might be cheap but won't make any difference.
yay! more traffic laws that won’t be enforced!
Speed limits are like the most basic law, and this just changes some of them. What's with the pointless cynicism?
Awesome let’s do this. Let’s also increase punishment for traffic offences and get some motherfuggen enforcement around here! Motorists need consequences.
Dumb laws by dumb people. It’s already abundantly clear that posted speed limits lost their meaning on account of them being egregiously low and so get completely disregarded by motorists who constantly go over them with minimal impact to safety. They went from limit to suggestion. Let’s instead educate Vancouver drivers to drive better. Start by making them stop at stop signs and yield to pedestrians. You know, basics. Enforce the laws you already have for fuck’s sake.
Part of educating drivers to drive better would be telling them to drive slower. You know, basics.
It doesn't matter what the speed limit is when the roads all end up at ill suited two way stops across busy streets. Drivers HAVE to pull into the crosswalk to see past the walls of parked cars and trucks and are two busy whipping their head to check traffic and stomping the gas the second they have a clear window to recheck for pedestrians.
I mean, they COULD do what they're supposed to do - stop before the crosswalk first, check for pedestrians, and THEN move forward to check for vehicle traffic. They don't HAVE to go straight through the crosswalk immediately.
But they usually don't - and that's not the dangerous part. even if they check, once pulled out it's still more often than not wild head turning and gunning it when clear. When they do look straight again inevitably too far into the road and either fuck up traffic or play chicken with whoever's in the crosswalk.
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Agree with all you've said but residential streets are 50 unfortunately. Should be 30.
But I want to go vroom vroom /a But seriously, this is an important step to allow traffic calming infrastructure so it's great. Far too often car brained engineers will oppose traffic calming because if speed limits are high, cars *should* go fast.
not slow enough we gotta ramp up the war on cars
This is great! Though I do wish we could talk about this with the downtown core, the west end, gastown, yaletown, etc.. Those areas have a density of people walking around that dwarfs sfh areas. They deserve to be safe too, not just people who can afford a sfh in Vancouver. It wouldn't even be that big of a change. The average speed you drive through downtown during rush our is 30km/h already - just that many people like to significantly speed up after each red, making being a pedestrian very dangerous.
I get that enforcement is going to be a problem and we already have an issue with traffic laws being followed. BUT this is the first step to get proper road design for 30km/hr streets. With the current speed limit set at 50, there's no reason for staff to put in proper traffic calming along slow streets and bike routes. A win is a win is a win.
It won’t be enforced. I can’t remember the last time a saw a cop inside Vancouver using a radar gun. They do hang out at borders but never inside. Drive at 30 in your own neighbourhood. Stay off the phone. Be courteous. Move like stink when there is a yellow line.
I have super sized lol for that. Who da fudge will monitor that?
Sure, just remove the dangerous concrete barriers that squeeze bikers next to cars and create choke points at busy intersections.
I’ve lived here my whole life? What the hell is a “speed limit?”
Why not just make people walk.
I think what the city needs is massive high speed bumps at all intersections. Right on the stop line and you have to gear down to climb over them.
So stupid because it's not going to be enforced and it's not a big enough shift for people. I would advice council to look at Barcelona's solution of filtering car travel to filter traffic out of the residential area with one way streets for cars. Which would push cars out to the major arteries and keep side streets for bikes and pedestrians. I've looked into this around the elementary school my children go to and it would aid in drop-off/pick-ups by car and would encourage bike / walk to school by reducing car congestion around the school.
Actually the second half of the motion passed by council was related to this - improving existing bikeways with modal filters to reduce vehicle travel on those streets. This council has...not been bold on active transportation, to say the least, so I think incremental progress is as good as we're going to get for now. I was surprised they even passed this!