The Ontario government will consider lowering speed limits across the province in an attempt to improve safety for pedestrians, motorists and cyclists.
According to a spokesperson for Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca, a number of consultations are planned with municipalities to discuss the idea.
The Highway Traffic Act currently sets the residential speed limit at 50 km/h “in cities, towns, villages and built-up areas,” however a report in the Toronto Star says that the Liberal government is considering lowering the limit to 40 km/h, allowing municipalities to set a default limit of either 50 km/h or 40 km/h within their boundaries or allowing municipalities to set their own speed limits altogether.
“The safety of Ontario’s roads and highways is my utmost priority, and making Ontario’s roads safer is part of my mandate as minister,” Del Duca said in a statement provided to CP24 on Thursday morning. “Municipalities have expressed the need to reduce their speed limits to enhance road safety for all road users, including pedestrians and cyclists. The province wants input from the public, municipalities and stakeholders on whether to consider changing the default speed limit for local roads."
The idea of lowering speed limits is hardly a novel concept.
In fact, in 2012 Toronto's medical officer of health Dr. David McKeown released a report proposing a 30 km/h speed limit on residential streets and a citywide speed limit of 40 km/h on all other streets, however former mayor Rob Ford dismissed the plan as “nuts” at the time.
Speaking with CP24 on Thursday afternoon, General Manager of Transportation Services Stephen Buckley said the city would be in favour of being granted the ability to set default speed limits. Buckley, however, noted that the city already exerts some control over speed limits, with council approving a lower limit of 30 km/h in a number of neighbourhoods in the past.
“The bill we were told about was about delegating authority to the municipality to make the determination and we would be supportive of that,” he said. “Now that said we obviously need to do some additional research on this and have some conversations with council about what this would mean. There has been some good research on a global level but I think we want to look in a little more detail here in Toronto at the causes of collisions and whether or not such an action will actually improve things.”
The World Health Organization has lobbied for lower speed limits in the past, releasing a report in 2004 that found that for every 1 km/h increase in vehicle speed there is a four to five per cent increase in the likelihood of a fatality in the event of a crash.
“I think there is fairly widespread support for lowering speed limits on residential and local streets,” Buckley said. “Folks that very much interested in pedestrian safety have been advocating for this and we are seeing this movement across many other large cities in North America as well.”
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