6 neighbourhoods to pilot lower speed limits

The city will launch a pilot project in May to lower speed limits from 50 km/hto 40 in six Edmonton neighbourhoods.

"Over all, we know the issue of speeding is really contributing to a lot of the collisions we have, over 25 per cent in Edmonton," said Gerry Shimko, executive director of the city's office of traffic safety, following a meeting of the transportation and public works committee Tuesday.

'If we don't get a better handle on it, everybody in the community basically bears the cost of people who speed."

The communities chosen for the pilot are Beverly Heights, King Edward Park, Woodcroft, Ottewell, Westridge/Wolf Willow and Twin Brooks. They were selected after officials looked into issues like the number of collisions, speeding complaints and traffic volumes, Shimko said.

The program comes with a price tag, including about $165,000 for the 1,000 new signs needed in the six communities and the costs of slowing down city buses in the area. But that pales compared to the cost of collisions, especially fatal ones, Shimko said.

'Fatalities $5.5 million each'

"We know that fatalities are about $5.5 million each in the city of Edmonton," he said. "We had 30 of those. If we can start saving those costs, it reduces costs for all type of emergency services."

The goal of the pilot project is to come up with statistics on the impact of the lower speed limits to enable the city to justify city-wide changes, Shimko said, adding the city has piloted a program that dropped speed limits to 30 km/h.

"There were some challenges about getting that speed and enforcing that speed," he said. 'So I think we are going to take the long approach [and] try to do it in an evidence-based way."

Results from the pilot project are expected in early 2011.