CANMORE – The Canmore Community Cruisers want people to slow down and help create safer streets and roads for all travellers.
In an effort to coincide with Bike Month in June this year, the organization recently launched its Love 30 KPH campaign in an effort to raise support for reducing speed limits in Bow Valley communities.
Mandy Johnson, with the Cruisers, said the group’s research has shown that road safety is an issue that discourages people from using active transportation such as cycling, especially when it comes to vehicle speeds.
“When the cars blow by me [on my bike], it’s very uncomfortable and it’s not at all pleasant,” Johnson said. “When we’re on residential streets and cars are going 30km/h – it feels safe. If you’re on a bike, you’re not going much slower than the cars.”
CCC has been working with local schools to undertake school travel plans. These projects have been completed for Elizabeth Rummel Elementary School in Canmore and the Banff Elementary School for example. Surveys that went to families during the process showed that vehicle speeds are discouraging for parents to send their children to school on bike.
Johnson said the organization’s Love 30 KPH campaign is part of a larger global movement to reduce speed limits “on roads where we live, work, shop and play.”
According to the Community Cruisers, lowering speed limits from the current 50 km/h to 30 km/h for local Bow Valley roads would improve road safety for pedestrians and also encourage more people to travel by bike or on foot, rather than by vehicle.
Reducing speed limits is also part of the solution to traffic congestion for resort towns like Banff and Canmore, Johnson said.
“The answer isn’t to widen the roads and promote more traffic,” she said. “It’s to get more people walking and biking around town … That in the long run is good for the people that are driving because the more people are walking and biking, and there is more room on the roads for those that just want to drive their cars.”
Johnson adds that reducing speed limits is also beneficial for the environment and businesses.
One of the main objections to reducing the residential speed limit is that it will increase travel time, but Johnson said research has shown that travel time is only incrementally affected when reducing speed. Research has also shown that if vehicles hit pedestrians and cyclists at lower speeds, people have a greater chance of survival.
“I would rather save a life than save a few seconds,” she said.
The Town of Canmore’s Integrated Transportation Plan includes direction to lower residential speed limits in the community to 30 km/h, but is just one of the ways that the Town is trying to calm traffic.
According to the ITP, traffic calming is achieved through four factors: reducing vehicle speeds, discouraging traffic on local streets, minimizing conflicts between street users and enhancing the neighborhood environment.
Chantale Blais, municipal engineer and acting manager of engineering for the Town of Canmore, said that the ITP’s main focus for road design is safety and liveability.
“The 30 km/h is one of the ways to do this, but if you look at the ITP, there’s a number of ways we’re looking to encourage slow traffic on local streets, to minimize conflict between users … that’s what we’re trying to achieve. We’re using a number of tactics to do this.”
Other tactics include social/cultural measures, like changing driver behaviour, and physical measures, such as changing the overall road design.
“Spring Creek, it’s naturally curvy so it encourages [people] to go slower, as you cannot really gain speed … these are some of the ways that design can help to reduce speed limits,” Blais said.
In the meantime, the speed limit reduction has no set timeline for implementation for Canmore’s residential streets.
