A decision on whether to reduce the speed limit on all local roads to 40 km/h was deferred Monday, but not before council committee discussed its options.
After looking into the request from council in November 2020, city staff recommended against lowering the speed limit.
A number of reasons were cited, including a 2014 study of speed limit reduction from 50 km/h to 40 km/h in urban areas that concluded drivers who reduced their speed to 40 km/h were the ones who had been adhering to the 50 km/h limit.
It was also noted that from Jan. 1, 2016, to May 1, 2021, eight collisions were reported in Orillia — an average of 1.6 per year — in which speeding was cited as a driver action. Impaired driving was a factor in three of those collisions, and all eight crashes were on collector or arterial, not local, roads.
If council were to vote to reduce the speed limit, it would cost about $635,000 for the installation of new signs, plus annual operating expenses of $63,500, which would go toward maintenance and replacing signs.
Speed limit signs would be required at the entrance to each road and every 600 metres after that.
In Monday’s report to council committee, staff wrote, “a project with such a large financial impact that does not guarantee an outcome is better spent on traffic-calming measures that have a much higher rate of success of reducing the speed of drivers that are driving at excessive speeds.”
Coun. Mason Ainsworth agreed.
“That money would be better spent elsewhere,” he said, suggesting, instead, traffic-calming measures be discussed during budget deliberations.
Coun. Tim Lauer asked if lower speed limits could be applied to certain roads, but not all of them.
That is doable, transportation technologist Lisa Dobson said, but she added it could “cause confusion for drivers going into different areas.”
Traffic calming is “more effective” than a new speed limit.
“There’s more benefit from speed humps and different kinds of traffic-calming measures,” she said.
Speed humps are different from speed bumps in that they can be installed annually and removed to allow for winter maintenance — a process that reduces the lifespan of a road surface.
Other traffic-calming measures include line delineators, which are placed in the middle of a road and serve as ”a bit of a physical distraction to the driver,” Dobson explained.
On-street parking and line painting are also effective, she said, adding roads without lines “look like a speedway to a driver.”
Coun. Ralph Cipolla, who initially called for staff to look into the speed limit reduction, asked that a decision on the matter be postponed so he could have more time to speak with staff about the city’s options.
Some of the information in the report “doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said.
“I’m not in favour of spending $635,000 to change this. There are other ways,” he said.
“It’s important for the safety of our community that we look at alternatives other than the $635,000.”
Council committee agreed to defer a decision to Dec. 6.
