Calgary politicians pitch slower cars, faster bikes

One Calgarypolitician wants slower speed limits on residential streets while another wants to allowfaster bicycle traffic on city pathways.

Calgary Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart said Calgary city council should consider a pilot project such as one in Edmonton where residential speed limits areto belowered in the spring from 50 km/h to 30 km/h in six neighbourhoods with the aim of reducing accidents and injury.

"Speeding in communities is the number one complaint I get from communities," said Colley-Urquhart. "People drop off their kidsat school and then they roar out of there to get to their next appointment, so it's frustrating."

But someCalgarians such asMichelle Ha say many drivers ignore the posted limits anyway and that is not likely to change. "I don't think it would change anything," said Ha. "I think people would still go at the same speed limit"

The advocacy group Safer Calgary is in the process of holding community meetings about traffic issues througout the city and spokesman Greg Hartsaid he'd rather see design changes such as speed bumps, which force drivers to slow down. "If you can re-engineer in some light way the roadways you will get better compliance from drivers because they have to react to those changes"

Meantime, Calgary cyclists may soon be able to switch to a higher gear on city pathways.

A motion to raise the speed limit on certain sections of the bicycle pathway system is to be made at city council next week.

Ald. Brian Pincott said he commutes by bicycle every day and it can be frustrating to slow to 20 kilometres per hour when the pathways are empty. Council will discuss whether it's feasible to divide pathways into two sections, one for speeding cyclists and the other for walkers and joggers.

And Ald. Rick McIver said forcing cyclists to slow down may discourage commuters from using their bikes.