Study urges traffic changes in school zones

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This article was published 28/08/2020 (1852 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A report on school zone speeding in the East Kildonan-Transcona area has prompted the city’s public works department to make recommendations to get more drivers to obey school-zone speed limits.

Tasked with investigating speed violations in the neighbourhood, the city department delivered a report to the East Kildonan-Transcona Community Committee, which found a total 11,195 tickets were issued in the neighbourhood’s reduced speed school zones in 2018.

The majority of tickets were issued through photo enforcement while 237 were issued through traditional police enforcement. Of the photo enforcement tickets, more than 90 per cent came from reduced speed zones at three schools: River Elm with 6,390 tickets, The King’s School with 2,276 tickets and Ecole Riviere Rouge, where 1,367 tickets were issued.

The report recommends expanding school zones beyond streets immediately bordering schools to ensure all parents and children within the 1.6 km walking zone of the school have access to safe streets, increasing the 30 km/h rules to a 24-hour, seven-days a week schedule to reduce confusion around holidays and evenings, and expanding school zones to middle and high schools.

It also recommended removing the requirement that school zones be implemented on non-regional streets in favour of a policy based on road classification, fencing, pedestrian and cycling infrastructure and other factors.

Also, it recommended following the City of Calgary in implementing reduced-speed zones near public playgrounds.

There are currently 240 reduced speed school zones throughout Winnipeg. These zones have a maximum speed of 30 km/h and are currently in effect from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday from September to June.

In an email statement Friday, Winnipeg Police Service said “reduced speed school zones throughout the city see fluctuations and variances in detected offences.” Though the study was only conducted for the East Kildonan-Transcona neighborhood, the city confirmed a wider study on road safety strategies is underway, and will review reduced speed school zones efficacy in other areas of the city.

Despite high levels of infractions in some school zones, police data found motorists generally reduce speeds to comply with school zones, and typically drive below the 50 km/h limit in effect during non-school hours.

Feedback from six school districts in the city overwhelmingly indicated that the reduced speed school zones improve student safety, according to the report.

Further evidence from a study conducted in Edmonton found that reducing speeds from 50 km/h to 30 km/h resulted in a 45 per cent reduction in fatal and non-fatal injury collisions and a 55 per cent reduction in injuries to vulnerable road users. For every one km/h reduction in average speed, fatal and non-fatal injury collisions dropped by four per cent, the study found.

The report comes in the midst of other municipal investigations into street safety measures, including a possible 30 km/h speed limit on all residential streets. If this limit were to come into play, reduced speed school zones may not be necessary, the report said.

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers