The city will look at cutting the speed limit to 80 km/h on its collision-prone parkways - potentially paving the way for photo radar, too.

City consultants and police point to speeding as a major reason for collisions on the Red Hill Valley Parkway and the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway.

A recent Spectator investigation found more than twice the number of crashes over five years occurred on the Red Hill compared to the Linc, despite lower traffic volumes on the contentious creek valley parkway opened in 2007.

Coun. Sam Merulla argued Thursday cutting the speed limit from 90 to 80 km/h is a first step in weeding out "fast, furious and stupid" behaviour, and hopefully, the associated fatal crashes.

Many drivers don't respect the existing speed limit, of course.

City traffic head Martin White said monitoring shows the average speed on the Red Hill sometimes approaches 110 km/h - more than 30 km/h over the legal limit. Hamilton police regularly nab drivers speeding 140 km/h or faster.

But that's where Merulla wants stepped-up enforcement to come in.

The Ward 4 councillor previously asked the city to investigate whether new provincial rules allowing photo radar in "community safety zones" could be applied to the Red Hill.

But new draft regulations say a community safety zone can only be implemented on a roadway with a speed limit of 80 km/h or less, White said.

That means cutting the speed limit on the parkways could also make them eligible for the use of the contentious photo radar technology, which automatically snaps licence plate photos of speeding motorists. (Photo radar was used on provincial highways in the 1990s but was later scrapped in the face of driver outrage.)

White cautioned it could be up to a year before the final rules governing the use of photo radar - and likely provincial court administration changes - are ready to roll.

So he doesn't know for sure if Hamilton's parkways will be eligible to use the technology, which was initially aimed at speeders in school zones. "But we will certainly take a look," he said.

Not everyone is convinced speeding is the only problem on the Red Hill.

Anecdotally, drivers have long complained about the Red Hill being slippery.

The city says limited friction tests on the road have proven inconclusive, but officials have refused to share the test results and plans are afoot to begin repaving parts of the parkway starting next year.

Police told the families of Olivia Smosarski and Jordyn Hastings - 19-year-old best friends who died after their car crossed the Red Hill centre median in 2015 - that the young women were not speeding at the time of the crash.

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Their families and others have called for median barriers to prevent cross-over crashes. So far, the city says that is not a short-term option, citing concerns about causing more collisions or damage when cars bounce off the barriers.

Why does the city own the parkways?

City council has more than once discussed asking the province to upload responsibility - and operating costs - for the Red Hill and Linc.

And many drivers and commercial truckers do indeed treat the roadways as a city-owned extension of 400-series provincial highways like the QEW and 403. (The parkway and its on-ramps and off-ramps, however, are not designed for 400-series highways speeds.)

Despite the debate, Premier Kathleen Wynne recently told

The Spectator she has never seen a formal city proposal for an upload of those roadways.

That's true. Merulla said council has discussed but delayed such requests in the past, partly because of a lack of statistics on parkway usage.

But he hopes to remedy that through a new city study of commercial truck traffic using the Red Hill and Linc as a shortcut through the city or to avoid a clogged QEW.

Council did ask the province in 2004 to share Red Hill operating costs before the parkway even opened. The province ultimately shared the cost of construction, but did not agree to the operating cash request.

