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Lower speed limits, more liveable neighbourhoods

Resident outlines that lowering our speed limits is necessary if we are to be a better place to live than we are a place to drive through.
Old Oakville Reynolds Street fall 2021 Randall
Reynolds Street

The notion that millions of people live in Toronto is misleading.  Nobody lives in the whole city.  People in Toronto live in neighbourhoods.  Many, perhaps most, go to work in other neighbourhoods than the ones they live in.  Many will also travel outside their neighbourhoods to shop, be entertained, go to schools and doctors, visit friends or family.

The other day on the way to our daughter’s house in the big city, as we wound our way through a series of Toronto neighbourhoods destined for hers, we were forced to endure a variety of permanent traffic calming devices and numbingly low-speed limits.  Because it took us so long to get to our destination, we decided to go home by an alternate route and travelled through more neighbourhoods, suffered more traffic calming and consistently low-speed limits.

Thomas Scott
Thomas Scott

Perhaps because we were driving slowly, we noticed the people in the neighbourhoods we drove through—kids on the sidewalks, a few skateboards and bicycles, dog walkers, older folks with walkers.  We actually overheard a conversation between two women, one on each side of the street.  They laughed, and as we passed, they walked toward each other.

A couple of days later, as we watched cars zipping by our house on a little residential street in one of our town’s older neighbourhoods, it dawned on us how different the local priorities are between Oakville and Toronto.

To be clear, the people hurrying along our residential streets are not, save a few, irresponsible drivers.  They are mostly good residents who don’t want to take longer to get where they are going than is absolutely necessary.  By and large, they are not speeders in a legal sense.  They use the velocity to which they are entitled.  They are like us, except they are legitimately busier than we are.  By comparison, we have easy schedules, no kids to deliver and pick up, few errands to run, no teams to coach, jobs to do.  But they are no busier than folks who live in Toronto, where the speed limit on any street like the one we live on is 20 kph slower.

Before we moved to Oakville over 45 years ago, we lived on three different streets in Toronto and before we were married I lived on three others. The speed limit on all six streets is 30 kph today.  

Residents of Oakville know how streams of fast cars can divide a community.  Look what the Queen Elizabeth Way has done to the whole town.  It is exactly what fast traffic does to a neighbourhood.  It splits it in two.

Some will argue that lowering the speed limit will not deter speeders, irresponsible residents and visitors who will disregard any speed limit and this is likely true.  But coupled with increased enforcement, 30kph and 40kph limits will increase fines, provide a serious deterrent to speeding and increase town revenues, increases that might make a tiny dent in property taxes.

On the subject of traffic management, some will suggest that the significant difference between Toronto and Oakville is available public transit.  This narrative leads us to consider the objectives of municipal lawmakers in both communities.  

Perhaps City Hall’s fondness for reduced speeds and traffic calming is to stimulate the use of buses, streetcars and subways in the interests of the environment. And perhaps Town Hall’s reluctance to slow traffic in our neighbourhoods is based on our public transportation limitations, a condition likely to continue if our rules continue to favour vehicular traffic.

Thomas Scott
Thomas Scott

I applaud our municipal government’s efforts to make Oakville liveable but we can’t be the most liveable city in Canada if our neighbourhoods aren’t.  

We are happy to live here, proud of our town, respectful of the management of inevitable growth.  But lowering our speed limits is necessary if we are to be a better place to live than we are a place to drive through.

I’m no Vegas-style odds-maker but I think it’s a safe bet that council will approve significant speed limit reductions in the near future.