Downtown councillors to debate lowering residential speed limits

[油井緋色]

Im not sure if this was a rebuttlle of my point but my comment was quoted so ill try to make it work but saying this,

If youre suggesting that people are taking their G tests outside of GTA because it's easier (Again im assuming this is your point cause i cant make sense of my message being quoted there in any other way), Its not because outside of GTA the tests are easier since they follow the same rules and regulations. It's mainly due to the fact that the testing centres in the city are uaually booked solid for a while so people take it outside. I took my G test in Scarborough, M1 in Aurora, M2 in Burlington and M in Oakville.

Every one of those locations were decided based on availability of testing appointments.

Not true, a friend of mine drove to butt **** no where to get her G2 because her instructor was one of those "100% pass rate" types. She is one of the most competent drivers I know because she rode first and took Racer5 before driving a car but if it were anyone else, especially most of the Asian drivers I know, I want them off the road; there were no stop lights, traffic, or pedestrians during her test.

 

[ashkan]

Not true, a friend of mine drove to butt **** no where to get her G2 because her instructor was one of those "100% pass rate" types. She is one of the most competent drivers I know because she rode first and took Racer5 before driving a car but if it were anyone else, especially most of the Asian drivers I know, I want them off the road; there were no stop lights, traffic, or pedestrians during her test.

Sure, i believe you but that doesn't mean anything. So because some drivers go far for an allegedly easy instructor (which is questionable itself), doesnt mean drivers are less safe. If anything the licensing system is harder now than before. In the past it was one test and off you go. Now there are all different phases i.e G1, G2, G and ... So while that may happen, that doesn represent any significant portion of society to matter. IF that even happens.

 

[Shaman]

Lower speeds bring higher congestion. Higher congestion brings higher accident rates. Great plan.

 

[Riceburner]

Lower speeds bring higher congestion. Higher congestion brings higher accident rates. Great plan.

and you were expecting better from politicians??

 

[Shaman]

and you were expecting better from politicians??

Sadly, I expect nothing good from politics anymore. It seems like all the reasonable laws were made in or before the 1970s and since then they've just been doing things to justify their existence and to line the pockets of their families and friends.

 

[conundrum]

Re: Stats from City of Toronto report on reducing residential speed limits

Drop from 40 ro 30 is easy....they couldn't try dropping 50-60 down to 30.....well they could try, but there'd be a big outcry for their jobs.

They did push for this...and the sad joke is that it happened around the same time BC decided to change most of their 80km/h zones to 100km/h, and their highways to 120km/h.

Don't get my wrong, I'm all for people not dying/being injured...but it is more than a little annoying when the problem is largely the pedestrians who can't look and see a car coming because their phone is more important to them than their life. What happens when we drop to 30 and there are still accidents? 20? 10? 0? I've seen people walk into doors and poles...should we make doors illegal and wrap every pole in bubblewrap?

As for the solution, I really don't know, besides taking away everyone's license and retesting, or ticketing pedestrians...but neither of those are realistic nor would ever happen. Also like others have said, you have to love how there can be an outcry for higher speeds on the 400 series, or the unlawfulness of C-51, and no one in government cares. They simply do what they want to, and 9 times out of 10 it is to either benefit themselves or generate more revenue (eg. tickets).

The funny part too is when I heard this on the radio, they were actually saying the 30 km/h change could be bad, as if you set the limit too low, people will either ignore it completely (and drive faster than they would with a 40 or 50 posted limit), or they will attempt to make up time once they get out of the 30 zone, and cause more accidents there. Time and time again it has been proven that accidents happen when you have drivers all at different speeds, and lowering limits causes this to happen. Set the limits where they should be for road conditions, and more people will be around the same speed, and less accidents will happen. Why people don't understand this, I'll never know.

 

[griff2]

Re: Stats from City of Toronto report on reducing residential speed limits

Don't get my wrong, I'm all for people not dying/being injured...but it is more than a little annoying when the problem is largely the pedestrians who can't look and see a car coming because their phone is more important to them than their life. What happens when we drop to 30 and there are still accidents? 20? 10? 0?

Blind hubris in that post.

Largely pedestrians who can't look and see a car coming because whatever reason? Think again.

"33% of fatally injured pedestrians acted in a mannerwhich caused or contributed to the crash;" http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/stel...scs/@www/@com/documents/webasset/ec161058.pdf

Do the math. The "largely" you speak of is on the other foot, or rather, wheel.

 

[Brian P]

Re: Stats from City of Toronto report on reducing residential speed limits

I would wager that that statistic includes only cases where they can PROVE that the pedestrian broke a law in some way. Just because they can't prove the pedestrian broke a law doesn't mean the pedestrian wasn't in the wrong.

99.999% of pedestrians are completely oblivious to what is happening around them.

 

[griff2]

Re: Stats from City of Toronto report on reducing residential speed limits

I would wager that that statistic includes only cases where they can PROVE that the pedestrian broke a law in some way. Just because they can't prove the pedestrian broke a law doesn't mean the pedestrian wasn't in the wrong.

99.999% of pedestrians are completely oblivious to what is happening around them.

Both are unsupported claims. You may as well just have simply belched.

 

[iFly55]

Re: Stats from City of Toronto report on reducing residential speed limits

http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2015.PW3.3

1. City Council approve the proposed warrants for establishing a 30 km/h speed limit in the absence of traffic calming, as contained in Appendix 'A' attached to the report (March 20, 2015) from the General Manager, Transportation Services, and that such speed limits, if warranted, be restricted to local and collector roads.

2. City Council request the Province of Ontario to enact a regulation that will allow for a doubling of speeding fines in 30 km/hour zones in the City of Toronto.

3. City Council request the Toronto Police Services Board to request the Chief, Toronto Police Service to create a strategy to increase police presence and improve enforcement of speed limits in neighbourhood local streets.

All three items passed.

_______________________________________

Proposed 30 km/h Speed Limit Policy
General Manager, Transportation Services

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2015/pw/bgrd/backgroundfile-78246.pdf

_______________________________________

This is just a matter of time, before they deploy this.

 

[kiwi]

Yep, world ****** class city...

 

[griff2]

Yep, world ****en class city...

Look at speed limits in the residential side streets of many world class European towns and cities. 30 km in residential side streets is a lot more common than what you might think.

 

[Boots]

Rather than telling parents to watch after their kids so they dont get pinged by a car on the street, and rather than teaching peds to not jay walk, lets put the onus on the car owners to drive 30 kmh. Thats not getting at the problem. At the end of the day this is only for cash gains and also to lay the blame the car driver for what is now considered speeding on a residential road in the event of a ped getting hit. So now, despite what the ped does, if they get hit by someone going what once was considered normal (40kmh), its automatically the drivers fault. Bravo, were glancing over the root causes of these pedestrian fatalities.

 

[Rob MacLennan]

Re: Stats from City of Toronto report on reducing residential speed limits

Both are unsupported claims. You may as well just have simply belched.

Just curious here; do you ever drive in downtown Toronto?

 

[Flywheel]

Re: Stats from City of Toronto report on reducing residential speed limits

Just curious here; do you ever drive in downtown Toronto?

With that sort of glib response, not likely. Pedestrians aren't remotely blameless from my experience in the DT.

More midtown now, on a poster child street--30 kmh, one way, street parking, speed humps and evey sign you could think of. Result? Motorists reverse down the street at 40km, nearly hitting drivers coming around the blind corners at 60kmh. The only sensible sort are the old folks who live there. They actual walk around with their heads up and don't jaywalk. That's changing as the iDoosh generation moves in. Head down, engrossed in the phone, while pushing a double stroller in the middle of the street. NICE!

 

[Rob MacLennan]

Re: Stats from City of Toronto report on reducing residential speed limits

With that sort of glib response, not likely. Pedestrians aren't remotely blameless from my experience in the DT.

More midtown now, on a poster child street--30 kmh, one way, street parking, speed humps and evey sign you could think of. Result? Motorists reverse down the street at 40km, nearly hitting drivers coming around the blind corners at 60kmh. The only sensible sort are the old folks who live there. They actual walk around with their heads up and don't jaywalk. That's changing as the iDoosh generation moves in. Head down, engrossed in the phone, while pushing a double stroller in the middle of the street. NICE!

I've almost been hit by a Toronto Star delivery driver who does that on a daily basis, because he's too lazy to make two left turns before 6:00am.

 

[griff2]

Re: Stats from City of Toronto report on reducing residential speed limits

Just curious here; do you ever drive in downtown Toronto?

Regularly. Saying that 99.9% of pedestrians are completely oblivious to what's going on around them, especially when they set foot to cross a street, is gross exaggeration. Flipping that number around would be a lot more accurate.

 

[kiwi]

Look at speed limits in the residential side streets of many world class European towns and cities. 30 km in residential side streets is a lot more common than what you might think.

True.. My frustration problerly explained better because this is a blanket change and the reasons behind the change seem to biased to a group of individuals. Also the amount of money that will be spent changing signs. Reminds me of the Jarvis bike lanes fiasco.
I'm all for safer streets but I don't like how the council operates in making decisions for the vocal minority. The joke is it won't make a real difference. I drive past 4 school zones in the morning regularly and the 40km doesn't faze any of the local drivers who just fly on by. These are the people whose kids go to these schools too.

 

[griff2]

True.. My frustration problerly explained better because this is a blanket change and the reasons behind the change seem to biased to a group of individuals. Also the amount of money that will be spent changing signs. Reminds me of the Jarvis bike lanes fiasco.
I'm all for safer streets but I don't like how the council operates in making decisions for the vocal minority. The joke is it won't make a real difference. I drive past 4 school zones in the morning regularly and the 40km doesn't faze any of the local drivers who just fly on by. These are the people whose kids go to these schools too.

If you read the City's documents you would see that it is not a blanket change. There are several conditions to be met for a Toronto street to be set at 30 km.

To its credit, Toronto has asked the province to double speeding fines on 30 km streets. That is a start. They should also lower the license suspension threshhold on those kind of streets, such as Germany where speeding 31+ km in a residential street carries a one month license suspensions.

That has to be backed up with enforcement, and Toronto has also requested a plan on how to increase police enforcement of speed limits on residential streets.

The bigger problem is driver attitudes. It's not the pedestrians who are oblivious so much as it is the drivers (and riders) who are. Just because it is easy to throttle up and glide down a street in absence of any unexpected occurrence doesn't mean that doing so is appropriate in a confined residential area.

 

[hedo2002]

I would agree BUT, the VAST majority of pedestrians and cyclist bieng hit and injured or killed are NOT happening on the streets that the limits are being reduced. A councillor on the 6 pm news last night said this change was as a DIRECT result of the collision involving the little girl, "georgia" (whose parents are WELL connected). Well Georgia wasn't killed as a result of SPEED she was hit when a driver did a rolling stop. SOOOOO if the councillors wanted to do something to make things more safe for other children like Georgia they would have erected a stop sign every 10 FEET. Then NO child would ever be in danger again.

Enacting a law to solve a problem that NEVER existed is ludicrous. If people are speeding at the current 40 km/h then that should be enforced. BUT it isn't. Does anyone actually believe that because a bunch of LEFT WING do gooder councillors pronounce that it is now 30 km that the police are going to enforce it any more strictly??

Consider this as a traffic officer your main objective when doing traffic speed enforcement is to ensure you effect as many people as possible with your presence, (Either by tickets or simply being present and causing drivers to slow down). So are you going to sit on an arterial road where you may have 3,000 vehicles pass per day or a 30 km/h residential street with a traffic flow of 100 vehicles a day??? DING DING DING arterial road wins EVERYTIME.

If you read the City's documents you would see that it is not a blanket change. There are several conditions to be met for a Toronto street to be set at 30 km.

To its credit, Toronto has asked the province to double speeding fines on 30 km streets. That is a start. They should also lower the license suspension threshhold on those kind of streets, such as Germany where speeding 31+ km in a residential street carries a one month license suspensions.

That has to be backed up with enforcement, and Toronto has also requested a plan on how to increase police enforcement of speed limits on residential streets.

The bigger problem is driver attitudes. It's not the pedestrians who are oblivious so much as it is the drivers (and riders) who are. Just because it is easy to throttle up and glide down a street in absence of any unexpected occurrence doesn't mean that doing so is appropriate in a confined residential area.