Article content

If city council is going to make sound decisions, it needs solid information from city administration. It’s not yet getting that in the debate on whether to lower residential neighbourhood speed limits.

City officials have made exaggerated claims about the unreasonable stubbornness of those who oppose lowering the speed limit and about the overall carnage caused by speeding. Our residential streets have been made out to be much more deadly than they actually are. It’s also being suggested that lowering the speed limit to 30 km/h will have much more of an impact than it likely will.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or David Staples: City officials relying on flawed data in push for 30 km/h speed limit Back to video

Both council and citizens appear to be deeply divided on lowering speed limits, with a strong suburbs versus mature neighbourhood split. One major fracture centres around the city’s botched attempt to gauge public support for dropping speed limits.

As I mentioned in a previous column, the city surveyed 676 citizens, with folks asked if they support a 30 km/h limit. There was little support for this.