Nanaimo Public Safety Committee recommends new speed limits around schools
Thomas said while Nanaimo currently operates under a 50 km/h blanket speed limit, it can be modified through specialized signage to 30 km/h. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
As the school year comes to an end, the City of Nanaimo’s Public Safety Committee is recommending lower speed limits around schools.
This comes after Nanaimo City Council received a report back on February 26 of this year about current school zone speed signs in the community that don’t comply with the provincial Motor Vehicle Act.
The report given to council, referenced a 2022 City Staff school zone policy review. The 2022 review found that if a school’s property line is over 50 meters from the street, it is not considered to be adjacent to that street and the school zone speed is then unenforceable. This makes some school zones, such as the one near Uplands Park Elementary School on Uplands Drive, unenforceable by the RCMP.
At the February 26th council meeting, Councillor Ben Geselbracht moved a motion for staff to create a report to present options for enforceable 30 kilometers per hour speed limits near schools. The report would then be presented to the Public Safety Committee for their input and recommendations.
At the Public Safety Committee meeting on June 12, Barbara Thomas, Assistant Manager of Transportation for the City, presented the new report.
Thomas started off the presentation by saying that pedestrian safety is a top priority for the general public.
“In the transportation section, in a year from last January to this January, we receive more than 600 complaints a year, and more than a third of them are about speeding and pedestrian safety. So it's top of mind for many of our residents,” Thomas said. “By managing speeds, it improves the pedestrian experience, it also helps drivers make better and safer decisions.”
She said while Nanaimo currently operates under a 50 km/h blanket speed limit, it can be modified through specialized signage to 30 km/h.
“We use them regularly based on a technical review, and that is sometimes where the road requires it,” she said. “Where you have limited sight distance, where you've got curves and hills, and also where we see high pedestrian concentrations.”
She explained that school zones were first envisioned for the purpose of requiring drivers to slow down when children are present on the road. This meant during the hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during school days, the enforced speed limit is 30 km/h, but outside of those hours, the drivers could do the regular speed limit of 50 km/h.
But Thomas said if the city was to put in a 30 km/h regular speed zone, a 30 km/h speed limit would be enforced 24/7.
She said they often receive requests for traffic calming mostly from people who are not happy with the speeds driven in their neighbourhoods. The City of Nanaimo states on its traffic calming web page, some tools used for traffic calming include speed humps, raised crosswalks, sidewalk extensions, on-street parking, and traffic circles.
She said the process takes about two years after an area is found in need.
“It's a long and lengthy process because we need funding, we need resources, and we need to confer with the public on what they'd like to see in their neighbourhoods. Public consultation just takes time. It's not something that can be rushed,” she said. “We want people to buy into what we're doing in their neighbourhood and have their feedback on the options that we're presenting.”
She also adds that based on all the complaints they receive about speeding, they have to ask themselves if the blanket speed zone is still appropriate and what the best way to manage it is.
“People have a hard time adhering to a posted sign. So we move towards the notion of self-explaining roads,” Thomas said. “We know from road safety research that people choose their speeds based on how a road looks to them, the information comes through their eyes to their brain, and they choose their speed based on the information that they see.”
Staff recommended one option for a motion which would recommend to the council to consider adding a project in 2025 to undertake a city-wide speed zone study to review how and where speed zones below 50 km/h are applied. This would look at adjacent land use near schools and urban centers where pedestrians are expected to congregate.
Member at Large for the committee, Scott Brodie said the study seems like a moot issue as it is already known where the unenforceable school zones are.
“I'm worried about a waste of money on a study. I feel like these studies have been done in cities all over Canada,” Brodie said.
Member at Large, Collen Middleton, said there is no need to give money to a consultant to do a report that will give the same answer they already know.
“We already know where the pedestrian safety issues are. So why are we doing a study to look at reducing speed zones, when we already know where the concerns are? They're around schools,” Middleton said. “We know that there are issues that need to be addressed and the city has already been made aware of those. So I don't see why we need to do a study for this.”
The motion for the option failed with no seconder.
A second option was then brought to a motion that would have the Public Safety Committee recommend that council direct staff to continue working on the elementary school zone speed limits, applying 30 km/h school zones where the Motor Vehicle Act requirements can be achieved and applying 30 km/h regulatory speed limits where the requirements cannot be achieved.
This option would have no cost for implementation and would be incorporated into operational and maintenance budgets.
The motion for the second option to recommend to council a standardized 30 km/h zone near schools passed unanimously.
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.