Lower Saskatoon speed limit to 40 km/h: city report

A City of Saskatoon administrative report recommends city council lower the speed limit in residential neighbourhoods to 40 km/h.

The document, which came before the city’s transportation committee on Monday, stated the city council should lower the speed limit to improve traffic safety and quality of life.

Three parents said they’re in favour of the measure.

“People are kind of always going to do that cheeky extra nine kilometers just to stay under (the limit) for a ticket,” Carly Greschuk said.

“And that causes people to go closer to 60 kilometers an hour.”

She lives on the west side of the city and said she worries for her two young girls.

She and Cameron Apperley, a father-of-three who lives in Stonebridge, said he’s seeing more vehicles in the neighbourhood lately.

All both parents said they’ve witnessed vehicles turn off of busier streets and maintained the same level of speed.

“Nine out of 10 houses has one to four children living in it,” Apperley said.

“Last year, with all the snow that was built up after that major storm in November, people were going… even fifty. You can’t stop in the winter on those roads,” Ashley Turner, another Stonebridge parent said.

But according to the report, they are in the minority.

It stated most survey respondents preferred not to change the speed limit, though more preferred lowering the limit to 40 instead of 30, another option.

Both were considered because travelling at a slower speed is safer for pedestrians and occupants of other vehicles involved in a crash, the report stated.

And lower speeds mean quieter streets, which would increase the quality of life.

The report recommended changing the speed on all residential streets, meaning local and collector streets. Any arteries, like Broadway and most of 22^nd Street West, along with any busier streets, would not be affected.

It also said the city would have to spend as much as $600,000 for the new speed limit signs.

The transportation committee approved the report on Monday, which sends it to a future city council meeting. Council must pass the measure before it becomes binding.