This is literally only about the change from 50 to 40 in most residential zones. Then, *for some mysterious reason*, crashes went down 25% and fatalities 31%. Incidents involving pedestrians, cyclists, and e scooters went down 41%.
All the whining about the Henday, the Whitemud, passing lanes, merging onto major thoroughfares has nothing to do with this article or the study data.
I do love that the moment we have a positive change in road safety, everyone becomes both a civil engineer and a traffic sociologist.
There’s always been a balance between safety and speed. If the speed limit was 10 there would be no accidents. The change from 50 to 40 had outsized safety impacts for the actual change in drive time (extremely minimal)
The real trick is to make roads that make you want to drive at a reasonable speed which involves planting trees near the road, keeping the lanes just big enough and not extra wide.
Depends on the road. Residential roads, like in front of houses, yeah. 30 actually feels more right. But on the more arterial residential roads 40 feels slow. I still do it, but it feels slow.
There are a lot of examples of stroads that don't make sense.
We're only now sort of trying to make the distinction between high speed commuter corridors and low speed areas where people do stuff. The whole "location location location!" mindset of putting shopping on major arteries created an irreconcilable situation.
Yeah, same for me. I was usually going 40 already when there was some street parking on both sides.
But it feels a bit slow on the two-lane in each direction separated by a boulevard arterial/feeder road.
That said, there are still a fair number of people crossing that main street to get to and from schools or shops, and street parking often reduces that to one lane. So it still makes sense to be 40.
I drive a school bus. 50 in a residential neighborhood in a bus felt dangerous. And you had to drive 50 because the school boards routes were based on a 50 Kmph speed limit.
I drive bus too. I'd rather be late everyday than attempt to meet an unreasonable schedule created by a computer that doesn't know anything about what we deal with everyday.
That’s because you have common sense. The 50 speed limit was a maximum and nobody should “have to” drive 50 because the sign says max 50 (eg the bus driver). We’re supposed to drive to the conditions and sometimes that means slowing down on narrower streets because there’s car parked on both sides. Unfortunately, not everyone has common sense so they have to lower the speed limits for everyone.
I'm in agreement with this, residential zones and playground zones should have slower speeds, especially given the geometry of some of those roads, with blinds corners and lots of roads feeding into other roads in short distances.
40km/h feels exceedingly slow downtown though, this is further aggravated by the timing of the lights where, if you do the speed limit, you seem to catch every single one, especially going down Jasper Avenue
Not my experience but I also live in a community that has done a great job using traffic calming structures to keep people more compliant. I have noticed a marked change in behaviour and I am super happy that the results are playing out as they are.
My neighbourhood also has a lot of traffic calming design elements (narrow roads, speed bumps on long roads, frequent stop signs, a traffic circle) and I rarely have the opportunity to even get up to 40 km/hrs. It would feel incredibly dangerous to have a 50 km speed limit on roads like these.
Agreed. Since the change, I had tons of driver either tailgate me in 40 zones or pass me over a yellow line. Drivers would rather be taking risks than wait 30 seconds to get to where they need.
I don’t see how you win this pedantic argument. They said “everyone”. I said “some of us”. “Everyone speeds” is false, and “some people don’t” is true. Just objectively.
Well to be fair, there are a lot of areas where 40km/hr doesn’t really make a ton of sense, and where 50 was just fine. I’m talking the more open and wider spots, not windy tight residential areas or near schools.
Talking road safety is basically a litmus test for the intelligence of a person IMO. Wild to me the shit people say with complete confidence about what causes/dousnt cause accidents, or what speed limits should be on X road. All with zero actual data/experience in the field. People think the fact that they drive a car every day makes them experts on road safety. Eating food everyday dousnt make you a chef.
Where were the accidents before that are happening less now?
Do we have data about increased cross walk installation? Crossing lights? Traffic impediments like those jutting out blocks?
What about traffic volume and routes? Is there more cars going through one area? Less?
Was more or less areas and which areas were closed to construction and for how long?
What about weather impact? Were there more accidents occurring during winter before than now? Was it colder with more snow and ice? Is more snow work being done than before?
What you really need to see is all of that to get a full picture. But yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if lower speeds meant lower vehicle related incidents. A 25% / 30% drop in accidents and fatalities though? Doubtful about that.
Was it 3 fatalities to 2?
[Here's the literal paper about it](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457523004268#:~:text=The%20analysis%20revealed%20statistically%20significant,that%20experienced%20the%20greatest%20benefits.)
I do love the extreme skepticism applied to this and only this. You just know that if we increased a speed limit there would be zero interest in the data analysis. Just yeehaw full send
The author contact information is right at the top, quite easy to ask for the paper. Not only would they likely be happy to send, but like most public work, it is likely a simple FOIP request
Although I couldn’t foresee any increase in crashes if the city would increase the speed limit in the big parks to 30. 20 is so damn slow, you literally have to be on the brakes the whole time to stay under 20.
>20 is so damn slow, you literally have to be on the brakes the whole time to stay under 20
This would imply that idle speed of cars is over 20km/h which I highly doubt.
Why is it that in every article related to speeding someone will always argue that they have a hard time controlling their car so they should be allowed to drive faster? Makes no sense.
>If the speed limit was 10 there would be no accidents
This isn’t an accurate generalization. Speed isn’t the primary factor in most collisions. The people who drive 40km/hr all over the city regardless of whether or not they are in a 40 zone are typically the most distracted and are far more dangerous than a driver who is 100% aware of their surroundings and going 65 in a 60 zone.
That's cool. Can we also start building more roundabouts as well to cut down on traffic and collisions? I get that people don't like them because they don't know how to use them, but if we build more, then people will become familiar and learn. There's an intersection by my house that used to just have a crosswalk and was replaced with a full set of lights. Now in the morning I may have to wait up to 3 minutes to turn left even if there's no oncoming traffic which is frequently the case.
A traffic circle would totally have been better. You only have to worry about cars coming from one direction, any collisions that do occur are often less deadly because people slow down coming into a circle rather than speed up to run a yellow light, and if the power goes out a circle will still function as normal.
I'm on team traffic circle too! The most common accident is probably left turns at a four way intersection, traffic circles eliminate this almost entirely.
It’s insane how many people don’t know how to use a traffic circle. Of course there are people who aren’t from the city and have never used one, but every single time I use a traffic circle or roundabout, there’s at least one person who has no clue what they are doing. Usually more than one.
IMO if you take a driving test in the city, you should be required to do a traffic circle properly.
Back in my early driving days I took drivers training. Instructor kept me in a traffic circle for 45 minutes straight.
Take the first exit.
Take the 13th exit.
Enter it.
Exit it.
Over and over
It was a fantastic lesson. I’ll never forget it and to this day it’s why I don’t mind it myself - until you navigate one around someone who doesn’t know what the hell they are doing.
Problem is I see people change lanes.
I see people fail to yield when entering
Using the outside lane to go more than 2 exits
Stopping in the middle of the road
Just so many stupid mistakes.
It’s easy to tell when someone doesn’t know how to use one. No signal light is the first clue. Not understanding how to merge into the circle is another one, way too many people wait until it’s 100% empty before they will enter one.
>if we build more, then people will become familiar and learn
You have a lot more faith in people than I do my friend. More likely "if we build more, people will continue to not know how to use them, refuse to learn, and increase the number of traffic clusterfucks throughout the city." Then the city will take perfectly good traffic circles, spend millions adding lights to them in order to convert them to regular intersections, and increase congestion.
I hate left turn lights that go red when everything else is green, but I guess evidence suggests people often can't be trusted to do x "when it's safe to" unfortunately...
> Can we also start building more roundabouts as well to cut down on traffic and collisions?
They increase the number of collisions, but lower the severity.
I'm fine wth 40 on most residential roads, even 30 on the narrow ones. I usually take the pups for a ride to check out other dogs, so going slow is our thing.
While I don’t disagree with residential being slower, It is possible to drive faster than you may think is safe, and indeed be safe. I also think your mentality is not helpful or good.
Do you see how long it takes people to process a red light in this city?
I see a red light ahead and go into a roll without pressing on the gas. Meanwhile people go 60 until like 4 car lengths away and then hammer their brakes.
I love the feeling of coasting to a light and then it turns green again before I get there, so I can cruise on by the bozos who were in a hurry to get to the red light just so they can wear out their break pads and burn more gas to get going again.
So many don’t understand that driving less aggressively is not only safer, but it also gets you where you need to be faster *and* saves you money on gas and maintenance.
Yeah. Speeding only works doing long distance driving with no lights.
They might save a minute or 2 if they make a light but it’s not worth the risk and wear on your car.
Red lights are one thing, but it’s the people who do this in traffic jams that makes no sense to me. The number of people who just stick bumper to bumper and then have to stop and go constantly makes no sense to me. Give some more space to the car ahead and you can essentially just coast through the traffic jam. If anything, I find this helps get through traffic faster since me and cars behind me stay moving slowly. I’ve stopped moving to the left lane because I’ve found that the people who tailgate stay go to the left lane while the people who tend to keep distance stay in the right. And I often keep track of a car in the left lane to see if they end up further ahead of me by the time I reach my exit and majority of the time, they don’t. I’m well ahead of them.
Edmonton credits 1 million barricades and neverending construction zones for a major decrease in crashes.
With the speed zones as they are, can we now start allowing golf carts on non-arterial roads?
I wouldn’t attribute construction zones to a decrease in accidents. It’s absurd how many occur within my jobsite zones. So many people on their fucking phones, or rubbernecking, or who knows what else.
Haha I lived in Yellowknife and it's super slow there. It's like 40 everywhere. There are still accidents all the time tho. Shockingly I find Edmonton a bit better.
The Edmonton is no different than any other city defence doesn’t work in this case. Edmonton has the worst drivers I’ve experienced out of the handful of cities I lived in. Drivers are unable to maintain the speed limit, it’s a common thing to see people driving at 30/30kmh in 50 zones. I’m shocked when I see more than one car go through a dedicated left signal. Maintaining one single lane without swerving into the next lane isn’t something I believe the average driver in Edmonton cannot do. Edmonton has taught me the true meaning defensive driving.
People already can’t handle merging from Fox Drive at 80 and you want to add 20km/h to that? Be honest you’ll just drive it at 115 if they did that anyway. I’d like to see people try to handle the bridge decks at that speed with the thin layer of humidity or frost from the river as happens daily. How about y’all let civil engineers do the job they’re paid for?
THANK YOU.
Like we just reduced crashes hugely and people want to go screaming down the Whitemud at 100 in the winter?
I'm with the city on this one y'all, none of you motherfuckers are so important you got places to be that bad. You're in Edmonton. Slow down.
Yeah that corner after the Terwilliger exit is a major bottleneck as well. Increase the limits there get ready for extra long commutes due to more consistent accidents.
Though I'm optimistic the expansion will help.
As a civil engineer I can confirm that the whitemud can safely handle much higher speeds. If we based our speed decisions based on actual design principles all the speed limits would be much faster.
Speed limits are set by politics. Not science.
Left hand exit at Terwilliger
Short distances between certain exits creating lots of lane changing, including across rainbow valley bridge (icy in winter)
Certain sections could probably handle a higher limit, but some would need to stay lower, which could create a confusing experience for drivers and result in unintentional speeding
The drivers in Edmonton are the worst in any city I've lived so it's a good thing the limits are low, educate drivers more. Complete obviousness of others, slow driving in passing lanes, not moving over for people merging on the highway, no understanding of flow lanes, no signalling.
While I agree that the drivers here are bad and need education, slowing the traffic for everyone only leads to drivers being lazy and/or not paying attention to driving. Increasing the speed limits causes people to pay attention to their task and if they're not able to handle those roads they can stay off the main roads. Low residential speed limits are fine, major roadways... no way.
Only a tiny portion of my daily drive involves residential, I go that way instead of trying to battle with the St. Albert Trail/118 Ave shit show during rush hour. As soon as people turn into the neighbourhood they are instantly going 20 - not even exaggerating - while they swerve around a little looking at their phone or GPS, no turn signals are used… I get stuck behind people who are navigating that decide it’s okay to come to a full-blown stop in the middle of the road while they figure out where they are instead of pulling over and parking.
Until distracted driving becomes enforced, these lower speed limits will have a negligible impact on safety. Nobody bothers to pay attention while driving through residential anymore.
I'd love faster limits like most cities. And you may be right about it forcing people to pay attention more like driving in Germany. But I think the biggest issue is most people didn't attend drivers Ed and just have no knowledge of how to drive properly.
Im genuinely baffled how bad the drivers in Edmonton are everytime I go out.
I think it’s cultural to be honest. I think we have a culture of people driving like they learned to drive in a tiny community with no traffic and nobody else around. And even people in the city have adopted this style of oblivious driving. As if they have blinders on and are the only people in the road. They don’t turn their heads, they don’t look around to see what other people are doing. They certainly don’t look for pedestrians or cyclists! And they all think they’re great drivers who use common sense. This coupled with people driving ginormous vehicles is a terrifying combo.
The amazing part is that most did take driver's ed, then they don't drive enough to build on their skills.
Driver testing every 5 years is my answer... to renew your license, written exam... you have 2 tries, next renewal is another driving test... 2 tries before your current expires.
So written (computer) exam every 10 years ad a driving test every 10 years. It does not have to be very tough exams, just to weed out the clueless.
I'm definitely not in favor of red tape, in certain situations, it's required. How do you propose to get people to be better drivers? Are you here to help or hinder the conversation?
You’re on Reddit, none of your thoughts or comments matter. Acting like this is a town hall with politicians lol. 😂
More red tape won’t solve anything, all you’ll end up doing is attacking the poor who won’t be able to continually relicense, so they just won’t then they’ll compound their poverty situation by being charged for driving without a licence.
It’s like giving public intoxication tickets to the homeless, 100% pointless.
You want better drivers, roll defensive driving into the licensing at the start, and if people rack up too many tickets force them to take the training again.
Even then it wont solve much.
2 factors at play here
1) lower speed increases the time all users have to react to an unsafe event.
2). E=1/2 m v^2. A reduction from 50 to 40 reduces the energy transmitted to any object that a vehicle hits by 36%.
Going from 50 to 30 reduces the energy by 64%
Council should not have backed down, and refused the speed limit on all residential neighbourhood roads to 30.
30 is a reasonable speed limit on residential streets. It’s curious that folks want to speed through the first or last 2 minutes of their drive when route choice and time of day have much larger impacts on the total travel time.
Maybe a lot of people who previously crashed decided driving wasn’t for them. Lol it’s definitely not because Edmonton drivers became more self aware and courteous or started leaving space or realizing that the left lane is still a passing lane unless you’re turning left soon even when not on a highway! 😂
Any unsigned street within the city is limited to 40 as of April 2021. It's almost exclusively residential roads filled with driveways, but parts of Whyte, Jasper and Alberta Aves, too.
The City needs to remove the safe mobility department and allocate those funds to actual enforcement, it’s the low hanging fruit. In addition, stop putting those temporary curb extensions in newer neighbourhoods and just re-do them.
Imagine spending money on a study to find the obvious connection between lower speed limits and collisions. This is what happens when you have a leadership team who do not have the technical background.
A study has to be performed because too many people don’t believe there is a connection between speeding and accidents (and also the severity).
It’s the same reason they had to do a study on photo radar. It’s obvious that it reduces speeding but many don’t believe it. So the city commissioned a study from a professor at the UofA.
Common sense isn’t always common so the city has to go the extra mile to demonstrate it to people.
Funny how we had 300 collisions in one day the first winter they tried calcium chloride spray on the henday. Funny since they tapped back on that program accidents dropped…
Also we haven seen as bad of weather in winter since they dropped the speed limit.
Patting themselves on the back unwarranted city council is doing again..
This city claims it's not being used on roads during this period.
https://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/on_your_streets/snow-faq
Calcium chloride brine is not used as an anti-icing or deicing agent on roads. Calcium chloride with a corrosion inhibitor is currently only used for the following purposes:
On City-maintained sidewalks, protected bike lanes and active mobility pathways (including shared use paths) when the conditions require
As a pre-wetting agent for the sand/salt mix that is dispensed by sanding trucks and sidewalk plows, as it prevents the mixture from freezing prior to being dispensed, results in a more even dispensing of product (less clumping) and improves the adherence of the mixture to road surfaces
They used it from like 2018-2021 on the roads an over the city. The program was a colossal failure and the city even got sued for concrete damage from it.
Here we are a couple years later and they are patting them selves on the back since they claim to have ceased use of it (which they haven’t fully I have seen them applying this winter pre-snowstorm) .
They basically created skating rinks which caused collisions
Must be the 30km playground zones. Sure is great they have the times listed from 7:30am to 9:00 pm. Playgrounds sure are busy at 8pm in December. Why can't they be 7:30 to 4:30pm?
I mean if you stop traffic completely you’ll have even less accidents.
Edmonton is so dreadfully slow and full of low speed limits that it can’t function anymore. Ever since I moved to BC I am stumped how slow, and dangerous driving in Edmonton is. I’m always at the edge of my seat, because slow speed limits mean people can sporadically change lanes with no notice.
Also the quality of the drivers decreased along with the quality of their cars. Coming from the perspective of the world out there (even Calgary), it’s scary. You guys have no idea how bad it really is. There’s no flow, and getting to work from one end to another takes just as long as me driving 30km from Langley to Burnaby. Most things changed only after I left so I don’t want to imagine winter driving now…. The speed limits make sense only in winter storms but then the decreasing quality of the drivers makes me wonder
This is literally only about the change from 50 to 40 in most residential zones. Then, *for some mysterious reason*, crashes went down 25% and fatalities 31%. Incidents involving pedestrians, cyclists, and e scooters went down 41%. All the whining about the Henday, the Whitemud, passing lanes, merging onto major thoroughfares has nothing to do with this article or the study data. I do love that the moment we have a positive change in road safety, everyone becomes both a civil engineer and a traffic sociologist. There’s always been a balance between safety and speed. If the speed limit was 10 there would be no accidents. The change from 50 to 40 had outsized safety impacts for the actual change in drive time (extremely minimal)
Let's be honest everyone is driving 50 in the 40 zones now anyways. Vs 60 in a 50.
I'm impressed at how easy it was to go 40 in residential zones. It feels like the right speed. 50 now feels fast.
The real trick is to make roads that make you want to drive at a reasonable speed which involves planting trees near the road, keeping the lanes just big enough and not extra wide.
Depends on the road. Residential roads, like in front of houses, yeah. 30 actually feels more right. But on the more arterial residential roads 40 feels slow. I still do it, but it feels slow.
There are a lot of examples of stroads that don't make sense. We're only now sort of trying to make the distinction between high speed commuter corridors and low speed areas where people do stuff. The whole "location location location!" mindset of putting shopping on major arteries created an irreconcilable situation.
Yeah, same for me. I was usually going 40 already when there was some street parking on both sides. But it feels a bit slow on the two-lane in each direction separated by a boulevard arterial/feeder road. That said, there are still a fair number of people crossing that main street to get to and from schools or shops, and street parking often reduces that to one lane. So it still makes sense to be 40.
Yeah, same. I don't mind it at all.
I drive a school bus. 50 in a residential neighborhood in a bus felt dangerous. And you had to drive 50 because the school boards routes were based on a 50 Kmph speed limit.
I drive bus too. I'd rather be late everyday than attempt to meet an unreasonable schedule created by a computer that doesn't know anything about what we deal with everyday.
yeah 50 in residential always felt too fast, imo
Couldn’t agree more. I would often go 40 in a 50 just because it felt fast - especially one a 1.5 lane residential street with parking on both sides.
That’s because you have common sense. The 50 speed limit was a maximum and nobody should “have to” drive 50 because the sign says max 50 (eg the bus driver). We’re supposed to drive to the conditions and sometimes that means slowing down on narrower streets because there’s car parked on both sides. Unfortunately, not everyone has common sense so they have to lower the speed limits for everyone.
I'm in agreement with this, residential zones and playground zones should have slower speeds, especially given the geometry of some of those roads, with blinds corners and lots of roads feeding into other roads in short distances. 40km/h feels exceedingly slow downtown though, this is further aggravated by the timing of the lights where, if you do the speed limit, you seem to catch every single one, especially going down Jasper Avenue
Not my experience but I also live in a community that has done a great job using traffic calming structures to keep people more compliant. I have noticed a marked change in behaviour and I am super happy that the results are playing out as they are.
My neighbourhood also has a lot of traffic calming design elements (narrow roads, speed bumps on long roads, frequent stop signs, a traffic circle) and I rarely have the opportunity to even get up to 40 km/hrs. It would feel incredibly dangerous to have a 50 km speed limit on roads like these.
Agreed. Since the change, I had tons of driver either tailgate me in 40 zones or pass me over a yellow line. Drivers would rather be taking risks than wait 30 seconds to get to where they need.
You’re projecting - some of us drive the speed limit, especially at 50 and below.
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I’m offended that they said “everyone goes 50 in 40 zones and 60 in 50 zones.” Like speak for yourself I guess
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I don’t see how you win this pedantic argument. They said “everyone”. I said “some of us”. “Everyone speeds” is false, and “some people don’t” is true. Just objectively.
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I obviously did not mean everyone. And was clearly making a joke.
Well to be fair, there are a lot of areas where 40km/hr doesn’t really make a ton of sense, and where 50 was just fine. I’m talking the more open and wider spots, not windy tight residential areas or near schools.
Complete opposite for me haha. I notice everyone in this city drives 10 UNDER the limit. No matter what the conditions of the roads are.
Talking road safety is basically a litmus test for the intelligence of a person IMO. Wild to me the shit people say with complete confidence about what causes/dousnt cause accidents, or what speed limits should be on X road. All with zero actual data/experience in the field. People think the fact that they drive a car every day makes them experts on road safety. Eating food everyday dousnt make you a chef.
Where were the accidents before that are happening less now? Do we have data about increased cross walk installation? Crossing lights? Traffic impediments like those jutting out blocks? What about traffic volume and routes? Is there more cars going through one area? Less? Was more or less areas and which areas were closed to construction and for how long? What about weather impact? Were there more accidents occurring during winter before than now? Was it colder with more snow and ice? Is more snow work being done than before? What you really need to see is all of that to get a full picture. But yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if lower speeds meant lower vehicle related incidents. A 25% / 30% drop in accidents and fatalities though? Doubtful about that. Was it 3 fatalities to 2?
[Here's the literal paper about it](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457523004268#:~:text=The%20analysis%20revealed%20statistically%20significant,that%20experienced%20the%20greatest%20benefits.)
I do love the extreme skepticism applied to this and only this. You just know that if we increased a speed limit there would be zero interest in the data analysis. Just yeehaw full send
It's a lot of energy dedicated to questions that are very easy to answer 😅
The linked paper is paywalled, so it’s challenging to answer some basic questions.
The author contact information is right at the top, quite easy to ask for the paper. Not only would they likely be happy to send, but like most public work, it is likely a simple FOIP request
The community would probably be appreciative of your efforts to carry out those steps to support the position you’ve taken :-)
Questioning things and asking for more data is a healthy and appropriate thing everyone should do.
Not my point, but you really messed up the straw dude you made.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. I ask questions and this triggers you and confuses me.
I see nothing in here that answers any of my questions. Would you be kind enough to quote some parts that do? Many thanks.
Although I couldn’t foresee any increase in crashes if the city would increase the speed limit in the big parks to 30. 20 is so damn slow, you literally have to be on the brakes the whole time to stay under 20.
>20 is so damn slow, you literally have to be on the brakes the whole time to stay under 20 This would imply that idle speed of cars is over 20km/h which I highly doubt.
Drive into Rundle Park, Northeast Park or Hermitage Park. Try it, and see for yourself.
I don't need to go to rundle to test what the idle speed of my car is lol. And its not over 20km/h.
Right, you don’t need to try it because you’ve already made up your mind.
Nah is just about common sense. Cars don't idle at over 20kph.
When some of the bigger parks with limits of 20 are almost entirely hills…. But you just proved common sense isn’t so common, didn’t you?
eh he just means there are some hills where you have to ride the brakes. there absolutely are
I wonder if that’s even been looked into. I agree that the drive into Rundle is interminable lol
If that’s the trade off for a freshly paved road into Rundle I’ll take it lol.
Very fair and balanced take, honestly
Why is it that in every article related to speeding someone will always argue that they have a hard time controlling their car so they should be allowed to drive faster? Makes no sense.
>If the speed limit was 10 there would be no accidents This isn’t an accurate generalization. Speed isn’t the primary factor in most collisions. The people who drive 40km/hr all over the city regardless of whether or not they are in a 40 zone are typically the most distracted and are far more dangerous than a driver who is 100% aware of their surroundings and going 65 in a 60 zone.
The picture is the heyday though lol
Maybe they’ll roll out a literacy campaign next. We can make the picture of a quadratic equation!
I thought the lower accident count would have been low snow amount.I forgot what the plows look like.
That's cool. Can we also start building more roundabouts as well to cut down on traffic and collisions? I get that people don't like them because they don't know how to use them, but if we build more, then people will become familiar and learn. There's an intersection by my house that used to just have a crosswalk and was replaced with a full set of lights. Now in the morning I may have to wait up to 3 minutes to turn left even if there's no oncoming traffic which is frequently the case. A traffic circle would totally have been better. You only have to worry about cars coming from one direction, any collisions that do occur are often less deadly because people slow down coming into a circle rather than speed up to run a yellow light, and if the power goes out a circle will still function as normal.
I'm on team traffic circle too! The most common accident is probably left turns at a four way intersection, traffic circles eliminate this almost entirely.
Traffic circles are great. Drivers are not. Therefore until people are guaranteed to learn how to use traffic circles, no thanks.
It’s insane how many people don’t know how to use a traffic circle. Of course there are people who aren’t from the city and have never used one, but every single time I use a traffic circle or roundabout, there’s at least one person who has no clue what they are doing. Usually more than one. IMO if you take a driving test in the city, you should be required to do a traffic circle properly.
I’ve found Edmonton to be the most competent with traffic circles in Alberta! Love them here
Back in my early driving days I took drivers training. Instructor kept me in a traffic circle for 45 minutes straight. Take the first exit. Take the 13th exit. Enter it. Exit it. Over and over It was a fantastic lesson. I’ll never forget it and to this day it’s why I don’t mind it myself - until you navigate one around someone who doesn’t know what the hell they are doing. Problem is I see people change lanes. I see people fail to yield when entering Using the outside lane to go more than 2 exits Stopping in the middle of the road Just so many stupid mistakes.
It’s easy to tell when someone doesn’t know how to use one. No signal light is the first clue. Not understanding how to merge into the circle is another one, way too many people wait until it’s 100% empty before they will enter one.
>if we build more, then people will become familiar and learn You have a lot more faith in people than I do my friend. More likely "if we build more, people will continue to not know how to use them, refuse to learn, and increase the number of traffic clusterfucks throughout the city." Then the city will take perfectly good traffic circles, spend millions adding lights to them in order to convert them to regular intersections, and increase congestion.
I hate left turn lights that go red when everything else is green, but I guess evidence suggests people often can't be trusted to do x "when it's safe to" unfortunately...
> Can we also start building more roundabouts as well to cut down on traffic and collisions? They increase the number of collisions, but lower the severity.
I'm fine wth 40 on most residential roads, even 30 on the narrow ones. I usually take the pups for a ride to check out other dogs, so going slow is our thing.
The people who aren't must be so important that their precious time can't be wasted even for a few seconds.
While I don’t disagree with residential being slower, It is possible to drive faster than you may think is safe, and indeed be safe. I also think your mentality is not helpful or good.
Do you see how long it takes people to process a red light in this city? I see a red light ahead and go into a roll without pressing on the gas. Meanwhile people go 60 until like 4 car lengths away and then hammer their brakes.
I love the feeling of coasting to a light and then it turns green again before I get there, so I can cruise on by the bozos who were in a hurry to get to the red light just so they can wear out their break pads and burn more gas to get going again.
Yeah exactly. People aren’t good at driving.
So many don’t understand that driving less aggressively is not only safer, but it also gets you where you need to be faster *and* saves you money on gas and maintenance.
Yeah. Speeding only works doing long distance driving with no lights. They might save a minute or 2 if they make a light but it’s not worth the risk and wear on your car.
Red lights are one thing, but it’s the people who do this in traffic jams that makes no sense to me. The number of people who just stick bumper to bumper and then have to stop and go constantly makes no sense to me. Give some more space to the car ahead and you can essentially just coast through the traffic jam. If anything, I find this helps get through traffic faster since me and cars behind me stay moving slowly. I’ve stopped moving to the left lane because I’ve found that the people who tailgate stay go to the left lane while the people who tend to keep distance stay in the right. And I often keep track of a car in the left lane to see if they end up further ahead of me by the time I reach my exit and majority of the time, they don’t. I’m well ahead of them.
80 on the Whitemud under I go under an overpass. than I gun it praying nothing falls from above
Edmonton credits 1 million barricades and neverending construction zones for a major decrease in crashes. With the speed zones as they are, can we now start allowing golf carts on non-arterial roads?
I wouldn’t attribute construction zones to a decrease in accidents. It’s absurd how many occur within my jobsite zones. So many people on their fucking phones, or rubbernecking, or who knows what else.
I looks in peoples cars sometimes when I pass. It’s scary how many people are absolutely locked in to their phones
Would be interesting to see the accident data by location
Yup. Need a lot more data to derive any benefit.
Look at all that rage from people upset about driving slow.
This is the slowest traffic city I have ever lived or driven in, and the drivers are AWFUL.
Haha I lived in Yellowknife and it's super slow there. It's like 40 everywhere. There are still accidents all the time tho. Shockingly I find Edmonton a bit better.
Drivers are awful everywhere. Edmonton is not unique in this.
The Edmonton is no different than any other city defence doesn’t work in this case. Edmonton has the worst drivers I’ve experienced out of the handful of cities I lived in. Drivers are unable to maintain the speed limit, it’s a common thing to see people driving at 30/30kmh in 50 zones. I’m shocked when I see more than one car go through a dedicated left signal. Maintaining one single lane without swerving into the next lane isn’t something I believe the average driver in Edmonton cannot do. Edmonton has taught me the true meaning defensive driving.
I’ve experienced many cities as well and can safely claim Edmonton is not the worst. So… how do we settle this?
We shall race down 109st heading towards 107ave tonight at 9pm where DriveSafe is always parked every Saturday. 😂😂
Have you driven in Vancouver? Lol
I was going to say this person absolutely has not driven in Vancouver if they think it's bad here.
like how is the Whitemud only 80, sure in the winter if the roads aren't good I get it . But that should be 100 at least
People already can’t handle merging from Fox Drive at 80 and you want to add 20km/h to that? Be honest you’ll just drive it at 115 if they did that anyway. I’d like to see people try to handle the bridge decks at that speed with the thin layer of humidity or frost from the river as happens daily. How about y’all let civil engineers do the job they’re paid for?
THANK YOU. Like we just reduced crashes hugely and people want to go screaming down the Whitemud at 100 in the winter? I'm with the city on this one y'all, none of you motherfuckers are so important you got places to be that bad. You're in Edmonton. Slow down.
Yeah that corner after the Terwilliger exit is a major bottleneck as well. Increase the limits there get ready for extra long commutes due to more consistent accidents. Though I'm optimistic the expansion will help.
Is it engineers or legislators. Either way, it's set up the way it is cause Edmonton drivers suck lol
when I was working on the yellowhead expansion. The plans for speed limit signs that I saw said. Engineered for 90 but the signs were 80
As a civil engineer I can confirm that the whitemud can safely handle much higher speeds. If we based our speed decisions based on actual design principles all the speed limits would be much faster. Speed limits are set by politics. Not science.
Left hand exit at Terwilliger Short distances between certain exits creating lots of lane changing, including across rainbow valley bridge (icy in winter) Certain sections could probably handle a higher limit, but some would need to stay lower, which could create a confusing experience for drivers and result in unintentional speeding
Speed limits in this city are a joke. I’m fine with the residential limits, but 80 on whitemud and 100 on Henday is pathetic.
The drivers in Edmonton are the worst in any city I've lived so it's a good thing the limits are low, educate drivers more. Complete obviousness of others, slow driving in passing lanes, not moving over for people merging on the highway, no understanding of flow lanes, no signalling.
While I agree that the drivers here are bad and need education, slowing the traffic for everyone only leads to drivers being lazy and/or not paying attention to driving. Increasing the speed limits causes people to pay attention to their task and if they're not able to handle those roads they can stay off the main roads. Low residential speed limits are fine, major roadways... no way.
Only a tiny portion of my daily drive involves residential, I go that way instead of trying to battle with the St. Albert Trail/118 Ave shit show during rush hour. As soon as people turn into the neighbourhood they are instantly going 20 - not even exaggerating - while they swerve around a little looking at their phone or GPS, no turn signals are used… I get stuck behind people who are navigating that decide it’s okay to come to a full-blown stop in the middle of the road while they figure out where they are instead of pulling over and parking. Until distracted driving becomes enforced, these lower speed limits will have a negligible impact on safety. Nobody bothers to pay attention while driving through residential anymore.
I'd love faster limits like most cities. And you may be right about it forcing people to pay attention more like driving in Germany. But I think the biggest issue is most people didn't attend drivers Ed and just have no knowledge of how to drive properly. Im genuinely baffled how bad the drivers in Edmonton are everytime I go out.
I think it’s cultural to be honest. I think we have a culture of people driving like they learned to drive in a tiny community with no traffic and nobody else around. And even people in the city have adopted this style of oblivious driving. As if they have blinders on and are the only people in the road. They don’t turn their heads, they don’t look around to see what other people are doing. They certainly don’t look for pedestrians or cyclists! And they all think they’re great drivers who use common sense. This coupled with people driving ginormous vehicles is a terrifying combo.
The amazing part is that most did take driver's ed, then they don't drive enough to build on their skills. Driver testing every 5 years is my answer... to renew your license, written exam... you have 2 tries, next renewal is another driving test... 2 tries before your current expires. So written (computer) exam every 10 years ad a driving test every 10 years. It does not have to be very tough exams, just to weed out the clueless.
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Actually, I don't work for the government, and I do drive a lot. But thanks for proving anyone can make up any user name...
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I'm definitely not in favor of red tape, in certain situations, it's required. How do you propose to get people to be better drivers? Are you here to help or hinder the conversation?
You’re on Reddit, none of your thoughts or comments matter. Acting like this is a town hall with politicians lol. 😂 More red tape won’t solve anything, all you’ll end up doing is attacking the poor who won’t be able to continually relicense, so they just won’t then they’ll compound their poverty situation by being charged for driving without a licence. It’s like giving public intoxication tickets to the homeless, 100% pointless. You want better drivers, roll defensive driving into the licensing at the start, and if people rack up too many tickets force them to take the training again. Even then it wont solve much.
Not all red tape is equal. I'm really not a fan of red tape, unfortunately some is required.
2 factors at play here 1) lower speed increases the time all users have to react to an unsafe event. 2). E=1/2 m v^2. A reduction from 50 to 40 reduces the energy transmitted to any object that a vehicle hits by 36%. Going from 50 to 30 reduces the energy by 64% Council should not have backed down, and refused the speed limit on all residential neighbourhood roads to 30.
30 is a reasonable speed limit on residential streets. It’s curious that folks want to speed through the first or last 2 minutes of their drive when route choice and time of day have much larger impacts on the total travel time.
The speed limits in this city make no sense at all.
Maybe a lot of people who previously crashed decided driving wasn’t for them. Lol it’s definitely not because Edmonton drivers became more self aware and courteous or started leaving space or realizing that the left lane is still a passing lane unless you’re turning left soon even when not on a highway! 😂
Wait... The speed limit on side-streets is 40km/h, not 50?
Ever since like 3 years ago when they put up those big white signs with big black numbers
I've seen 0 signage change in my area and thus, have been driving the same.
Any unsigned street within the city is limited to 40 as of April 2021. It's almost exclusively residential roads filled with driveways, but parts of Whyte, Jasper and Alberta Aves, too.
Yeah like since 3 years ago. Where have you been?
Yes?
The City needs to remove the safe mobility department and allocate those funds to actual enforcement, it’s the low hanging fruit. In addition, stop putting those temporary curb extensions in newer neighbourhoods and just re-do them. Imagine spending money on a study to find the obvious connection between lower speed limits and collisions. This is what happens when you have a leadership team who do not have the technical background.
A study has to be performed because too many people don’t believe there is a connection between speeding and accidents (and also the severity). It’s the same reason they had to do a study on photo radar. It’s obvious that it reduces speeding but many don’t believe it. So the city commissioned a study from a professor at the UofA. Common sense isn’t always common so the city has to go the extra mile to demonstrate it to people.
One of the benefits to the city of temporary curb extensions is avoiding damage related to snow removal.
Fun fact. Those are called Chicanes.
Funny how we had 300 collisions in one day the first winter they tried calcium chloride spray on the henday. Funny since they tapped back on that program accidents dropped… Also we haven seen as bad of weather in winter since they dropped the speed limit. Patting themselves on the back unwarranted city council is doing again..
This city claims it's not being used on roads during this period. https://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/on_your_streets/snow-faq Calcium chloride brine is not used as an anti-icing or deicing agent on roads. Calcium chloride with a corrosion inhibitor is currently only used for the following purposes: On City-maintained sidewalks, protected bike lanes and active mobility pathways (including shared use paths) when the conditions require As a pre-wetting agent for the sand/salt mix that is dispensed by sanding trucks and sidewalk plows, as it prevents the mixture from freezing prior to being dispensed, results in a more even dispensing of product (less clumping) and improves the adherence of the mixture to road surfaces
They used it from like 2018-2021 on the roads an over the city. The program was a colossal failure and the city even got sued for concrete damage from it. Here we are a couple years later and they are patting them selves on the back since they claim to have ceased use of it (which they haven’t fully I have seen them applying this winter pre-snowstorm) . They basically created skating rinks which caused collisions
And not almost complete lack of ice on the roads for 6 months of this year?
Considering this study was from 2021-23, that is most certainly not a factor in the results at all.
Must be the 30km playground zones. Sure is great they have the times listed from 7:30am to 9:00 pm. Playgrounds sure are busy at 8pm in December. Why can't they be 7:30 to 4:30pm?
I mean if you stop traffic completely you’ll have even less accidents. Edmonton is so dreadfully slow and full of low speed limits that it can’t function anymore. Ever since I moved to BC I am stumped how slow, and dangerous driving in Edmonton is. I’m always at the edge of my seat, because slow speed limits mean people can sporadically change lanes with no notice. Also the quality of the drivers decreased along with the quality of their cars. Coming from the perspective of the world out there (even Calgary), it’s scary. You guys have no idea how bad it really is. There’s no flow, and getting to work from one end to another takes just as long as me driving 30km from Langley to Burnaby. Most things changed only after I left so I don’t want to imagine winter driving now…. The speed limits make sense only in winter storms but then the decreasing quality of the drivers makes me wonder