As reported in Ville 30 the town of Gland Switzerland with a population of 12,500 have decided that the ENTIRE road network within the town will be restricted to 30 km/h with the exception of a few main arteries.
Why? To ensure that Vision Zero goals of safety and comfort for all road users are paramount, and to ensure a better coexistence with what the French call “soft mobility” users. Streets will use visual markers where those 30 km/h zones start, and streets will be narrowed using alternate on street parking, which will also slow speeds.
The town of Gland set up the goal to go to 30 km/h ten years ago and finally got approval from the higher state authority . With that approval the town is hosting public meetings to show their plans and will fully implement the speed restrictions in the spring. Further restricting vehicle speed to 20 km/h near the train stations is now being discussed.
The use of 30 km/h zones has been limited in British Columbia to a few main streets, school zones and areas in Victoria and Vancouver as well as the tiny town (population 3,500) of Rossland. Adopting a city-wide driving speed limit allows for uniform application and enforcement of the new speed limits, enhances road safety for other road users, and makes for a more comfortable convenient walking and biking environment. Kudos to Gland for leading the way.
Good on Gland for taking that significant step.
However, Sandy, the use of 30 km/h zones in British Columbia has not actually been limited “to a few main streets and areas in Victoria and Vancouver” – they are in place in likely thousands of school and playground zones across the province. I don’t know the statistics of their effectiveness, but I’d venture they are very effective at reducing ‘road violence’ in these areas.
Anyone have any stats on these?
30 km/hr limits are also in place on non-arterial bike routes in Vancouver. This isn’t supported by the province, so the City has to put up signs every block or so.
And didn’t Rossland lower speed limits to 30 km/hr?
Editor note: oops, forgot!
Rossland
Bowen island is 30 k for about 3k from the ferry 40 k for the rest of the island.
below is the projected zone30 map form the Gland website:
http://www.gland.ch/fileadmin/documents/pdf/Mobilite/zone30.jpg
from the map:
Arterials are not in zone 30 (in Vancouver, teh council got it backward, it put 30km/h sign on arterial such as Hasting, no wonder it is not respected…)
each zone 30, is not greater than 1sq km (that correspond to some recomendation: the zone are short enough to not frustrate the driver)
The zone 30 ares signalled by a speific sign at the entrance of the zone
Is it some sort of scheme the city of Vancouver has ever applied to?
I believe it has applied for 30km/h blanket speed for the whole city what is differen… and is not a recommended practice (since it doesn’t make sense on many route, starting by Hasting and so is just just inviting people to not respect it)
Hastings was a special case. Would you rather having the most disadvantaged people in the city continue to be killed by motor vehicles? It’s only for a few blocks.
I am sure that 30k zones would not be allowed by the Province. An easy way to implement this ih BC would be to have roads without a centre line default to 30k/h.
Council didn’t get it backwards, they wanted the ability to have a lower default speed limit, ie 30 km/hr, with arterials and specific roads posted higher, ie 50 km/hr.
The way it is now, they have to put up a 30 km/hr sign everywhere they want it 30. That is a lot more signs (and expense for taxpayers) than just posting arterials as the exception.
I am not sure people here understand the concept of a “30km zone”:
1/ A 30km/h zone is specified by a couplet of signs looking like it in Europe:
http://www.radio912.de/storage/pic/images/objekte_logos/85885_1_Zone_30.jpg
when you enter the zone you see the red sign (as shown in the post), indicating the new speed limit. you are supposed to obey to it until you see the “barred” sign, where you can resume to the default speed unless otherwise posted, or another more restrictive sign (20km/h zone). An example from Gland:
https://voony.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/glandrueabbayefinzone30.jpg
Once you have past the end of zone sign, you can resume to the 50km/h default speed limit in Gland like in any other swiss city (the reason why there is 50km/h sign here).
2/ a Swiss city council can’t decide to erect 30km/h signs out of the blue moon:
this needs to be motivated by specific objective and more importantly be proven effective:
That essentially means that 85% of the vehicle must respect the speed limit, in free flow condition. If it is not the case, the city must dismount its signs or improve the street design up to satisfaction: in the meantimes, no speed limit can be enforced.
Gland finally got the formal approval for the green zone in the map above, only in 2016 (not yet for the other zones).
In short, if the Province was acting like the Vaud canton: the city of Vancouver could have to dismount its 30km sign on Hasting street, because they don’t work….and discredit the whole zone 30 concept (which is based on confidence, you can let the kid running on the street without worrying of speeding vehicle in such zone.
3/ Because the Vancouver local folks don’t understand how a zone 30 works and why it works, they got it backward:
if we follow the Jeff suggestion:
you could have a 50km/h sign every hundred meter on North south arterial street…A driver coming from South end of Granville wanting to go to downtown, could see not less than 70 50km/h sign…and because there is no sign , let’say after Davie street, the driver should understand that the speed limit is now 30km/h?
In most road safety circle, that is considered as a big NO-NO (too much sign kills sign awareness which end up to be detirmental to road safety…), and by common sense standard, it is just considered insane! …and it is fortunate the province doesn’t let such insanity go through.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel, the zone 30 as described here are applied all over Europe, Asia too, Quebec,…proven very effective…but if even the local planners and advocate don’t understand how that works and continue to push for backward solutions. We are going nowhere.
PS: I had posted my first comment in response to the inaccuracy of the post and its misleading title (it is not the “ENTIRE” town…): The editor has preferred to edit my first comment…
I think the concept of a 30 km/hr zone is understood, but we don’t use those signs in Canada. See the BC Manual of Traffic Signs, which complies with the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Canada. This standardization helps when people drive across provincial and city boundaries.
The idea of a zone or area with a reduce speed is called a blanket speed zone in the above manuals. At the end of the zone, we don’t use the second sign in your couplet, but rather the first sign, with the higher limit. Same effect.
The phrase “unless otherwise posted” is also part of our standard signs.
To your point 3, you don’t need a sign every hundred meter, you need it after every major intersection. Yes, that can be a lot of signs. But consider the alternative. If you leave the arterials as the standard speed, and post the lower speed on every non-arterial, it is an order of magnitude more signs. That is the only option the municipalities have today. I think we agree that it results in too many signs. See the many bike routes, which the City has to post with a lot of signs.
I think we agree on the benefits of a 30 km/hr zone, whatever size that zone is. The issue is that the municipalities say that the province doesn’t permit it. Current requirement is to put up the 30 km/hr sign after each major intersection. It isn’t whether the lower speed zone is defined for the entire municipality, or a smaller section of it, but rather that the municipality doesn’t have the power to do it.
I understand there is no local standardization to specify something not yet existing here…
it is not uncommon to add new sign to handle new case (such as “yield at bike lane”…)
It was the same in Europe, at the begining it was no 30km/h zone sign. The sign entered in the french legislation in 1991, that was already late by European standard.
In the meantime, the approach was the same as Richmond in Burkerville or Granville island: just put signs, which could have no legal backing, but still rise awareness and prove the concept. If European city had behaved like Vancouver (do nothing and blame the senior government for your own inaction), Gland and the rest of Europe could be still waiting!
However, Quebec has one NA style sign:
https://i2.wp.com/www.spvm.qc.ca/upload/PDQ10/Panneau__maximum-40-secteur.jpg
the word “secteur” just needs to be translated in English (zone or area).
New York city, they use this below:
https://assets.dnainfo.com/generated/photo/2013/05/slow-zone-sign-1369849097.jpg/larger.jpg
the blue sign is widely inspired of an european sign meaning “pedestrian area”.
(not sure they can legally enforce the thing, but as previously said, at least they do something).
The word secteur could be translated, but that needs to be done by the province. They control the sign standards, and the Motor Vehicle Act. The result is, as you pointed out, any local signs are not enforceable. Here is our sign for BC:
http://i349.photobucket.com/albums/q367/jcleigh/Posts/Blanket%20Speed%20Limit%20Sign_zps5xebgyrz.jpg
It is used as per section 146 of the MVA. It is typically used in unorganized areas (146.4). In a city, we have a statutory speed limit, which is the problem. It is 50 km/hr. If the City wants to have a lower speed limit in a zone, whatever that zone is defined as, they have found that they need to post it on every street after every major intersection, because someone may have accessed that street and not be aware. This is the essence of the problem. There is a blanket zone of 20 km/hr, but it only applies to alleys less than a certain width. The cities (via the Union of BC Municipalities) want to have the ability to decide to have other than 50 km/hr in a zone. If you want to paint this as this blaming senior levels of government while doing nothing, fine, but it is actually more a case of creating higher costs for local taxpayers because of the actions or inactions of senior levels of government. It is time to update the MVA, for many reasons, this being but one of them.
I believe they have to post signs at every street intersection.
Jeff, to the risk to repeat myself:
the zone 30 concept has been introduced d in Europe before any bylaw was existing.
Even after the bylaws have been introduced, the zones are not necesssary “enforcable”.
Gland introduced its first zone 30 (the one in green in the map above) in 2009. It has been approved by the senior authority only in 2016…in the meantime no police enforcement could be done.
To get approved, the city needs to demonstrate that 85% of the vehicles obey to the speed limit. To achieve that usually requires considerable street redesign: raised intersection, diverter, road narrowing by any means… the cost of a sign is then pretty much peanuts…for one of the red zone Gland will visually narrowing the road, pretty much on the model below:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HSFvKylRQIk/TuyOLQrPFvI/AAAAAAAAD1M/yehHjn_Pqtc/s1600/fietsstraat.jpg
In case of you wonder, the sign indicates a “fietsstraat” (the picture is from Netherlands). It has not legal ground, but it doesn’t prevent the Dutch local authorities to put in place this relative new concept…
Back to the New York City example I was mentioning above:
If the 20mph zone (and the sign associated to it) had some legal ground, it should figure it somehwere here: https://www.dot.ny.gov/mutcd Does it is?
To give you a hint, the NYC DOT website explains that
The zone itself is a self-enforcing, reduced-speed area with speed bumps, markings and other traffic calming treatments.
That is effectively respecting the philosophy of the zone 30 concept:, To quote Charles Marhon: if you need a sign to tell people to slow down, you designed your street wrong., which is also mirrored by the “85% rule” the swiss use to approve or not a such zone.
Again, what New York city is currently doing after many european cities (and Granville island), there is no reason it can’t be done in Vancouver…
invoking the sign rule or cost of of them is simply ludicrous, and eventually shows a lack of understanding of how a zone 30 should works.
PS: I think the Union of BC Municipalities has asked for cities the right to change the default speed limit city-wide (what is also advocating Sandy James)…not a legal framework to implement 30km/h zones, what again is a different animal.
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