A 2017 amendment to the Highway Traffic Act allows municipalities to establish, through their by-laws, a different prevailing speed limit for either a portion of the municipality or for all roads under its jurisdiction. Certain other municipalities have used this power to either:
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Establish 40 km/h as the default speed limit for the entire municipality, or
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Establish 40 km/h “speed areas” for specific neighbourhoods.
An example of speed area signage from Hamilton, Ontario is provided as Figure 1.
Figure 1: Speed Area Signage Example (source: Urbanicity.com)
Vision Zero Policy
The Vision Zero Policy was adopted by Council on February 24, 2020. The Vision Zero Policy identifies the goal of zero fatal and serious injury collisions on City of Windsor streets.
As of the 5-year collision review done for the 2017 Road Safety Report, collisions on local roads and Class 2 Collector roads (i.e. the road classifications addressed in this report) represented 14% of fatal and serious injury collisions at intersections and 24% of fatal and serious injury collisions occurring mid-block between intersections.
Discussion:
Three options were considered to implement 40 km/h speed limits on residential streets. Diagrams of each option are provided in Appendix 1:
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Keep the default City-wide speed limit at 50 km/h and place 40 km/h speed limit signs on residential streets,
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Decrease the default City-wide speed limit to 40 km/h and place 50 km/h speed limit signs on major roads that would remain at 50 km/h, or