{"id":45259,"date":"2018-10-14T15:16:53","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T21:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=45259"},"modified":"2021-02-08T07:52:57","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T14:52:57","slug":"airdrie-motorists-happy-to-take-things-nice-and-slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2018\/10\/14\/airdrie-motorists-happy-to-take-things-nice-and-slow\/","title":{"rendered":"Airdrie motorists happy to take things nice and slow"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Better Safe Than Sorry: <\/strong>City Hall in Airdrie on Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. Airdrie’s 30 km\/h residential speed limits haven’t changed since city council members took the initiative to foster safer communities in the 1980s. (Photo by Carmen Cundy\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

W<\/span>hile Calgary is looking to reduce residential speed limits, Airdrie has maintained its 30 km\/h speed limits with relative success since the 1980s.<\/p>\n

L<\/span>orne Stevens, director of community infrastructure at the City of Airdrie, said he would like to think that Airdrie has paved the way for other communities to lower their residential speed limits.<\/p>\n

Stevens said in an interview that a lot of people will travel from community to community in the Calgary area to do business or to visit family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf [travelling to Airdrie] provided a spark to ask some questions from your local elected officials and if Airdrie\u2019s name came up then that\u2019s great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to Stevens, the decision to lower Airdrie\u2019s residential speed limits to 30 km\/h showed \u201ca fair amount of wisdom by elected officials back in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevens has been an Airdrie resident since 1996 and has been a City of Airdrie employee since 1999, but that the 30 km\/h speed limit was imposed long before his time.<\/p>\n

In the early to mid-1980s, Airdrie adopted lower residential speed limits to accommodate a growing and vibrant young community.<\/p>\n

The city of Airdrie took the initiative to tell the community that it \u201cvalues kids and safety\u201d by introducing several road safety initiatives, including lowering residential speed limits, said Stevens.<\/p>\n

Airdrie is still a very young community and with a younger community you have a higher potential for young people to be on the sidewalks or crossing streets, according to Stevens.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou definitely have a higher probability of surviving a pedestrian-vehicle collision at a lower speed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the main drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the World Health Organization website<\/a>, speed is a key risk factor in road traffic injuries, which has a major influence on both the risk of a road crash as well as the severity of injury due to a crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople can stop a lot easier if they\u2019re going 30 km\/h or 40 km\/h compared to 50 km\/h, especially if a kid darts out between vehicles,\u201d said Kathy Darker, a resident of Calgary since 1986.<\/p>\n

Darker said that a lower residential speed limit might have prevented her grandson, Ethan Nielson<\/a>, from being struck by a vehicle in his residential community of Cranston in 2016. Nielson had to be airlifted to hospital as a result of the accident.<\/p>\n

Darker said that the decision to lower Calgary\u2019s residential speed limits is an obvious one to her, because everyone goes slower in residential areas anyways, \u201cor at least most do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ainsley Goheen, an Airdrie resident and proponent of the 30 km\/h residential\u00a0 limit, said that it is the driver\u2019s responsibility to ensure the safety of themselves and others while driving.<\/p>\n

You definitely have a higher probability of surviving a pedestrian-vehicle collision at a lower speed. – Lorne Stevens<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIf preventing the death of a child means leaving two minutes earlier for your obligation, then that should be an easy decision for you,\u201d said Goheen.<\/p>\n

According to Goheen, kids don\u2019t often remember to look both ways before crossing the road, and if a kid runs out in front of a driver\u2019s car, the difference between 30 km\/h and 50 km\/h could be \u201cthe difference between life and death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can and does happen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Calgary\u2019s \u2018Step Forward\u2019 committee is looking to reduce residential speed limits to 40 km\/h, Airdrie has maintained their 30 km\/h speed limits with relative success since the 1980s. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":509,"featured_media":45270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S1 Speed Limits","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-life","8":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45259"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45935,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45259\/revisions\/45935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}