Recent letters praising the proposed lowering of Victoria’s residential speed limit to 40 km/h has me bewildered.
I would like to know just how slowing traffic by 10 km/h actually increases the flow and number of cars travelling through a light or stop sign, as one writer claimed. How is that even possible?
I’m sure everyone who does the Colwood Crawl daily would be glad to hear their commute time will be dramatically shortened and they’ll have more time to sleep in.
Victoria’s mayor says the city can’t do it alone, due to the huge expense of sign replacement. So let’s take this idea one step further and reduce the speed to 30 km/h. The city could make thousands of dollars by selling the 50 and 40 km/h signs and could sell all the school and playground signs, since the speed would be the same virtually everywhere.
All they’d need would be large signs posted at the entrances to the city as a reminder of the speed in Victoria. Problem solved. With the extra cash, dozens of police officers could be hired to ticket the scofflaws who continue to drive at the breakneck speed of 50 km/h. The tickets could pay for the officers’ salaries.
If traffic in this town gets any slower and congested, council’s next step may be to ban cars from the city entirely, build huge parkades on the outskirts and use Tally Ho wagons as a shuttle service to people’s offices or shopping trips. Oops, should I have even mentioned that?
Rod Sauder
Esquimalt
