Would lowering Windsor's speed limits actually make people drive slower?

At Monday's city council meeting, Ward 8 Coun. Gary Kaschak suggested the speed limit on Windsor's residential streets be lowered — from 50 kilometres per hour, to 40 kilometres per hour.

Kaschak said he's received a litany of complaints from people worried about cars speeding through their neighbourhoods and has asked city administration for a report on the issue.

"There's just so much traffic now going down residential streets," said Kaschak. "It looks like people are using them as cut through routes, they don't want to go through the Pillette and Jefferson type streets, they'll go through the residential streets and everybody seems to be in a hurry."

Kaschak said bringing the speed down to 30 km/h is what some cities are considering, but he said that would be hard to do. He believes other councillors will support the idea of a 10 km/h reduction, and said he's received many supportive emails from constituents outside of his ward. 

But professor of transportation and planning at the University of Waterloo, Jeff Casello, said reducing the speed limit won't really make a difference in driver behaviour. 

"I think that lowering the speed limit tends to give false sense of security to the people who live there simply by changing the signs," he said. "Typically that doesn't change a traveler's behaviour."

For the short term, enforcing the speed limit would be a good fix, said Casello. But a more effective long-term solution would be to change the physical design of the neighbourhoods to do what is called "calming the traffic."

"The idea is that you actually set a physical situation that gives them the signal that travelling too fast is not appropriate," he said.

It really takes more than just changing the signs to change behaviour- Prof. Jeff Casello,  transportation and planning, University of Waterloo

Casello said narrowing lanes is a good example. 

"When you don't feel like you've got a lot of space on either side you tend to drive a little bit more slowly," he said.

Speed 'humps' are also effective — rather than a bump, these are "vertical displacements" to signal a different feel that signals to drivers they are expected to drive more slowly. 

Casello said the reality is that many people will not "follow the rules" of a new speed sign and we drive according to our physical surroundings. 

"It's not anyone purposefully trying to speed, it's just the situation allows the driver to drive at that speed and still be comfortable," he said. "So it really takes more than just changing the signs to change behaviour."

Over the years, residential areas have been designed to maximize vehicle movement rather than pedestrian movement, said Casello. The "cookie cutter" design is easy for developers to follow.

"It takes really a concentrated effort by politicians and the planning community and the engineering community to influence developers to think differently about how they're going to develop their streets."

Kaschak said his plan will be largely dependent on how much lowering the speed limit would cost the city, but believes there's a desire to move forward on the initiative. City administration will go back to council with a report on cost and timelines for the project, before it could be approved.

"It'd be a good debate at council, I'm sure they'd probably be some some delegations come in," said Kaschak.