Kitchener city council votes to lower speed limits to 40 km/h in residential areas
Kitchener city council voted to approve lowering speed limits in residential areas at a Monday night meeting.
Currently, the speed limit on residential streets in Kitchener is 50 km/h, but a proposal presented to council suggested lowering that to 40 km/h, with school zones dropped down to 30 km/h.
"This is one tool in trying to help decrease speeds, and as a member of council, this is one issue I hear most about," said Coun. Kelly Galloway-Sealock. "I think it's important for us to take any steps we can to try and decrease the speed on roads."
Council voted in favour of the plan on Monday night. Coun. John Gazzola was the only vote against it.
"I realize that speeding is an issue, but we're not getting a good bang for our dollar," he said. "We're spending $550,000 to put signs up all over the place."
The recommendation was brought to city council earlier in October following the Neighbourhood Speed Limit Pilot Project that was launched in 2019 by Transportation Services.
The pilot project lowered speed limits in three Kitchener neighbourhoods.
According to city staff, the project saw drivers in those areas slow down by one to 11 per cent.
Kitchener's transportation manager Aaron McCrimmon-Jones said lowering speed limits will make roads safer.
"A 15 per cent survival rate increased to 70 per cent if somebody is hit by a car if somebody is driving 40 (km/h) rather than 50 (km/h)," he said.
The project is estimated to cost the city $550,000. The price tag includes new signage and installation as well as community education.
During the Monday night meeting, city staff said the project would likely take two years to complete as workers need to install more than 1,000 signs throughout the city. Only when the signs are installed do the new speed limits come into effect.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canada's most wanted fugitive arrested in P.E.I. in connection with Toronto homicide
A suspect in a fatal shooting in Toronto’s east end last summer has been arrested in Charlottetown, just one week after he topped a list of Canada’s most wanted fugitives.
BREAKING Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
Concerns about plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall plexiglass barriers.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Poilievre unrepentant over calling Trudeau 'wacko' as his MPs say Speaker should resign
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Toddler of Phoenix first responder dies after bounce house goes airborne
A two-year-old child died after a strong gust of wind sent the bounce house he was in airborne and into a neighbouring lot in central Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said.
Plane overshoots runway at airport in St. John's, N.L., no injuries reported
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are headed to St. John's, N.L., after a plane overshot a runway at the city's airport this afternoon.
A teen was found buried in a basement in New York. An engraved ring helped police learn her identity two decades later
For more than two decades, the unknown victim was nicknamed "Midtown Jane Doe" because she was found in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City. But this week, investigators finally revealed her identity.