Morinville council could lower residential speed limits to 40 next winter as part of an update to its traffic safety law.
Morinville town council asked administration to propose revisions to the town’s traffic safety bylaw during its July 12 meeting.
Passed in 2013, Morinville’s traffic safety bylaw sets out rules for roads, vehicles, and pedestrians in town, council heard from town enforcement services supervisor William Norton. The law is due for an update, and Norton asked council for some pointers on what they want to see changed.
Speed limits
The bylaw sets out speed limits on town streets, Norton noted as an example — 20 km/h in alleys, 30 in school zones, and 50 for most residential streets. He recommended dropping the limit on residential streets to 40 km/h, as many Edmonton-area communities had done.
“Dropping (the limit) down 10 km/h would actually have an exponential effect on safety,” he said, as it would greatly reduce the risk of death or injury to drivers and pedestrians.
Research by the Capital Region Integrated Safety Partnership has found that every 5 km/h increase in speed doubles a person’s risk of death in a collision, with a pedestrian 90 per cent likely to die if struck at 60 km/h.
Norton and council raised the idea of changing the town’s school zones into playground zones.
Morinville has a mix of playground zones, school zones, and school areas, Norton said in an interview. (A school area is a place with a school but no school zone speed limit, typically created when students are separated from traffic by a fence.) School and playground zones have speed limits for certain hours of the day (7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for school zones, 8:30 a.m. to 1 hour after sunset for playground zones). Some communities use playground zones instead of school zones to protect youths on school grounds outside of school hours, while others have all-day playground zones.
Flashers, helmets, e-scooters
Norton also proposed new rules for the use of eight-way-stop flashing lights on school buses in Morinville.
Bus drivers are required to turn on their vehicle’s 8-way-stop flashing lights when stopped to pick up or drop off students, unless prohibited to do so by bylaw, Norton said in an interview. Some municipalities ban the use of these lights and instead require buses to pull over and stop at marked bus zones.
While these lights can enhance student safety, Norton told council they can also hinder traffic, and are often ignored by drivers, negating their purpose. His preference would be to ban the use of these lights on 100 Ave. and 100 St., and to work with school boards to create designated safe drop-off zones.
Provincial law requires anyone under 18 to wear a helmet while riding a bike, but is silent on helmets for adults or scooter and skateboard users, council heard from Norton. He recommended that council require youths to wear helmets while using any wheeled vehicle, including skateboards and scooters, but did not call for an adult helmet law, as there is not yet public support for such a step.
Coun. Stephen Dafoe said he is glad Norton did not call for an adult helmet law, even though adults should know helmets are a good idea.
“As much as possible, government needs to stay out of the lives of people.”
Norton said Morinville is starting to see residents riding e-scooters in town. While these vehicles are banned in Alberta, Norton said Morinville could create rules for their use as some communities (such as St. Albert and Edmonton) have done.
Coun. Scott Richardson said council should consider regulating e-scooters as they are a growing trend.
Norton told council he would have a revised traffic safety bylaw before them by early next year.
