The faster a vehicle is going, the more potential it has to injure or kill someone.
And that, in a nutshell, is why the Healthi Kids Coalition, a children’s advocacy group, is asking City of Rochester officials to lower the speed limit on neighborhood streets from 30 mph to 25 mph.
Prior to the push, coalition staff asked parents across the city about what prevents them from letting their children walk to school or playgrounds. One of the most common reasons they gave was traffic, says Mike Bulger, healthy communities coordinator for the coalition.
Healthi Kids isn’t the first group to ask the city to lower the speed limit on its neighborhood streets. Reconnect Rochester, some neighborhood leaders, and cycling advocates have also raised the idea. State Assembly member Harry Bronson and Senator Joe Robach have introduced bills that would give the city the authority to broadly set 25 mph limits on roads, but City Council needs to pass a resolution requesting the Assembly and Senate to act, Bulger says.
Street design and traffic enforcement are also critical to addressing neighborhood traffic woes. But most drivers will take a cue from lower limits and slow down. In doing so, they’ll give themselves more time to spot and react to unexpected situations, such as cars suddenly backing out of driveways, cyclists dodging road hazards, or children stepping into streets when they shouldn’t. Slower moving vehicles can also stop quicker.
And in the event that a car hits a person, it’s less likely to cause serious or fatal injuries if it’s travelling at 25 miles per hour than if it’s going 30.
This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2017.
Slowing City traffic down make it safer for pedestrians, more survivable, and lower greenhouse gas emission as more people feel safe to walk.
As I write, there are two pedestrian/car collision incidents in our area. Pedestrians always lose in a confrontation with a vehicle. Who in their right mind wouldnt want to slow down and protect the lives of people wanting and needing to walk to their destinations?
Active transportation (walking and bicycling) is a critical transportation option for many peoples livelihood and active transportation must be made a viable transportation mode as Climate Change become more dire.
Just this week, a study found Transportation is the Biggest Source of U.S. Emissions (11/21/2017 Climate Central)
Wouldnt it make more sense to adopt laws that brings our freaking car/pedestrian accident rate down, rather than the horrific toll being paid for a speedy ride through our neighborhoods?
So by the logic that if, “a car hits a person, it’s less likely to cause serious or fatal injuries if it’s travelling at 25 miles per hour than if it’s going 30”, then why not decrease the speed limit to 20…or 15…or 10? If lives can allegedly be saved by reducing the speed limt to 25, then aren’t the lives that can be saved by reducing it even further equally important?
After spending millions that the city doesn’t have to change all the signage, will it then be dumped when the citizens declare the policy racist, as they did with the successful red light camera issue?
The bigger question is how much longer will the citizens of Rochester put up with the dog and pony show that has sat in City Hall for generations?
This will do nothing to improve the education system, create a business friendly atmosphere or eradicate poverty
From the 2017 study, “Twelve Cities: Does lowering speed limits save pedestrian lives?”, by Jonathan Auerbach and Rob Trangucci:
“…we conclude that adjusting the posted speed limit in urban environments does not correspond with a reliable reduction in pedestrian fatalities… (and) we conclude that while the policy appears beneficial, there is too much uncertainty in the parameter estimates and thus too much variation in the predictive distribution, for changes in the number of pedestrian deaths each year to be meaningfully attributed to policy.”
This study also cites previous studies which also came to the same conclusion, “But lowering a speed limit without improvements to road design, enforcement and outreach may do little to reduce fatalities if drivers feel little pressure to comply with the lower limit (Leaf and Preusser 1999). In fact, the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration (NHSTA) rates the countermeasure reduce and enforce speed limits three out of five stars for improving safety because research indicates that actual speed is reduced by only a fraction of the change in the posted speed limit (Goodwin et al. 2010). “
http://mc-stan.org/events/stancon2017-notebooks/stancon2017-auerbach-trangucci-twelve-cities.pdf
There definitely is a speeding problem on city streets. I typically go 35, and I am almost always the slowest going and passed regularly. But, reducing the speed limit to 25 isn’t the answer. Keep it at 30, but aggressive traffic enforcement is needed. On a number of city streets, the norm is 35-45. Some go slower, a few go faster. Let’s work on slowing drivers down to the current speed limit first, before taking the limit down further. #Aggressive traffic enforcement.