This project aims to lower vehicle speeds on school zones adjacent to arterial and collector roads to create safe speeds. Studies show that lowering vehicle speeds can significantly improve pedestrian and cyclist safety.

The City plans to lower the current 50km/hr speed limit to 40km/hr and 30km/hr for arterial and collector roads, respectively, by using new signage and road paint. This project will be piloted at nine elementary schools, as elementary aged students are highly vulnerable road users. To minimize impacts related to travel times for transit, emergency services, and goods movement, the new speed limit will be in effect during school hours only.

School engagement along with a public education campaign will be arranged to inform road users prior to implementation and afterwards to continue reinforcing this change. This campaign will include social media posts, and custom “slow down” signage with a united theme for schools.

Multiple school communities have requested speed reductions in school zones adjacent to arterials or collectors to address safety concerns and to improve the comfort of students using active modes of travel. In several cases, the request was triggered by a collision or multiple reports of near misses happening in school zone.

Reducing the speed limits on roads adjacent to schools will help to protect some of the most vulnerable road users: elementary school children. Reduced speed limits of 30km/hr have already been implemented on local streets adjacent to schools, parks, and bikeways, and a select few collector and arterial streets. For this project, 30km/hr and 40km/hr limits were chosen as safe speeds during school hours while minimizing impacts related to travel times for transit, emergency services, and goods movement.

Lower vehicle speeds can greatly reduce the risk of a fatal collision. As stated in the Speed Management Manual by the World Health Organization, the probability of a fatal pedestrian-vehicle collision drops drastically from 80% at 50km/hr to 15% at 30km/hr. Field of vision along with driver and pedestrian response time increases with reduced speeds, which works towards reducing the severity and likelihood of collisions.

Prior Street and E Hastings Street are two examples from the City of Vancouver that already demonstrate a 20% reduction in average speeds from a speed limit reduction of 50km/hr to 30km/hr. While most vehicles were still speeding above 30km/hr, there was a major drop in vehicles going over 50km/hr, from 70% to 47%.

While other traffic calming measures such as speed humps can be implemented in local streets, these cannot be implemented on collector and arterial streets without having significant impacts on transit, emergency services, and goods movement. Other geometric improvements are also significantly more costly than signage and may not be possible at each school location. Lowering the speed limit is relatively cheap, quick to implement, and can be applied to more locations.