Nanaimo's public safety committee is recommending that the city standardize lower vehicle speeds around schools.
A city staff report on speed limits around schools and what can be done to reduce vehicle speed across the city came before the committee at a meeting Wednesday, June 12.
Staff was directed by council in February – following a motion from Coun. Ben Geselbracht – to compile the report with options to create enforceable 30-kilometre-per-hour speed limits in high-risk pedestrian areas, such as near schools. That motion came after staff informed council that school zone signs were being removed on Uplands Drive, Metral Drive, McRobb Avenue and Dover Road because they did not meet the definition of school zones under B.C.'s motor vehicle act.
This week's report was presented by Barbara Thomas, the city's assistant manager of transportation, who said the city puts in place 30km/h speed zones regularly, based on a technical review.
"Sometimes … the road requires it where you have limited sight distance, you've got curves and hills, and also where we see the high pedestrian concentrations," Thomas said.
School zones of 30km/h were established to slow vehicles when children were likely to be on the road during school hours – normally from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. – and vehicles can travel up to 50 km/h outside of those hours. The city has also sets 30km/h regulatory speed zones in areas such as downtown Nanaimo, where there is high pedestrian traffic or road conditions requiring lower speeds.
Members of the public sometimes ask for traffic-calming measures such as speed humps and road narrowing, Thomas said, but getting those in place is a two-year-long process that requires data collection, public consultation, design work, funding and council approval.
"Based on the number of complaints we get around speeding, we ask ourselves, is the blanket speed limit still appropriate, how best to manage speeds throughout the city in a community that really does like to go fast?" she said. "People have a hard time adhering to a posted sign, so we moved toward the notion of self-explaining roads. We know from road safety research that people choose their speeds base on how a road looks to them. The information comes through their eyes to their brain and they choose their speed based on the information that they see."
Nanaimo has moved to 'complete-street' standards, with Thomas citing Metral Drive as an example. She said the city counted 100,000 trips taken on the Metral Drive bike lanes and sidewalks in July 2023.
"It's still a very nice street to drive. We were able to scrub some speed off. We still are able to move vehicles. We also have space for pedestrians and cyclists, and the notion of this is, when you're a driver on that street you know what speed we want you to take with your vehicle," she said.
Jamie Rose, city transportation manager, added that "creating a road environment that gets the behaviour we want, as opposed to hoping that enforcement can rein it back in" is the better option.
As per how to proceed with lowering speed limits in high-risk areas, the report suggested the public safety committee recommend city council consider adding a speed zone study as part of 2025-29 financial plan deliberations. Such a study could review how speed zones are applied, taking into account land use near schools and urban centres and pedestrian concentrations.
A second option included recommending council direct staff to continue work on speed limits near elementary schools, maintaining 30km/h school zones where applicable under the B.C. Motor Vehicle Act and applying 30km/h regulatory speed limits where the city has jurisdiction. A third option recommended council consider studying a city-wide blanket 40km/h speed limit.
Committee members, mostly opposed to spending money for the staff-recommended study, voted unanimously for the second option to standardize enforceable 30km/h speed limits on streets near elementary schools. The recommendation will come before council at a future meeting.
