Springfield Speed Sign Removal - Petition

Selective signing refers to Maximum 50 km/h signs that are not used at speed reductions and are "selectively" placed to remind motorists of the 50 km/h statutory ('50 unless otherwise posted') speed. The purpose is best described by the Ontario Traffic Manual which states, that these signs may be used, "to confirm and supplement the statutory speeds, especially where there is evidence of drivers violating the speed limits." These signs are found in every Canadian city including Winnipeg and are also very common in other Manitoba jurisdictions such as East St. Paul. Springfield Road is long and open with no stop signs which often encourages higher speeds above 50 km/h. It also runs between Raleigh and Henderson Hwy which are both higher speed roads. For these reasons, of the 122 selective Maximum 50 km/h signs in Winnipeg, 5 were placed on Springfield. Photo radar is most often on major roads with 50 km/h speed limits that lack these selective signs. Only 7 of 122 of these signs are before photo radar sites. With response to requests to have signs installed on some major roads, the city has claimed that selective speed signs will "erode the "Maximum 50 km/h Unless Otherwise Posted" rule." Even with this current claim, selective signs are still being installed with the most recent ones being added on Dugald Road eastbound east of Plessis and westbound west of Plessis during the summer of 2012. In comparison to the '50 unless otherwise posted' rule applying to speed limits, no road is a truck route unless signed as. It's essentially the same blanket policy; in the absence of signs, no road is a truck route or a speed other than 50 km/h. Despite this, Winnipeg has 334 signs indicating roads that are 'Not A Truck Route', but only 122 selective signs indicating roads that are 50 km/h. McLeod is one of the many that has 'Not A Truck Route' signs which were not touched during the removal of the speed signs. During 2010, the city installed 7 driver feedback signs that have a selective Maximum 50 km/h sign and a feedback display to indicate a driver's speed if they are over the limit. These signs cost $100,000 but were, "begging people to just slow down." A standard speed limit sign costs about $35 and is a bargain compared to over $14,000 for a single driver feedback sign. A request was submitted to the City of Winnipeg councillor for Elmwood on November 15, 2012 to have Maximum 50 km/h signs installed on Hespeler Ave between Henderson Hwy and Main Street. The reasons given were that Hespeler is a major 4-lane roadway, regional (major) road, truck route, numbered city route and runs between two higher

speed roads being Henderson Hwy and Main Street both with a 60 km/h speed limit. There is a playground on Hespeler and an obvious speeding problem with daily photo enforcement in the playground zone and the camera at Beatrice being the 14th highest producing speed camera out of 51 cameras in the city. This request also referenced the speed signs already present on McLeod and Springfield. Even though the city claims to be, "begging" people to slow down, rather than install the signs on Hespeler, the city chose to remove the already existing signs on Springfield and McLeod. The response from the city came on November 30 at which time, the signs had already been removed. They were removed very quickly considering that it took 5 months to have the missing school zone signs at John Pritchard School replaced which was only done after national coverage. There have been 206 missing school zone signs reported to the city, almost all of which the city has not yet gotten around to replacing and some being in the Springfield Road area. There are also many missing speed limit signs, one of which is on Henderson near Springfield, which the city has still not replaced. In an effort to save the signs, a petition was done for residents living on Springfield Road. The petition was able to get signatures from 75% (209/279) houses along Springfield. It was submitted to the Public Works Dept, the mayor's office and the city councillor on Jan 14, 2013. The city responded on Feb 4, 2013 stating that it is the city's intent to remove all 50 km/h speed limit signs and that the city will not consider a petition when removing speed limit signing. The city also asked for my list of all 50 km/h signs to accelerate the removal process. Before photo radar, the city used 50 km/h signs at areas with speed problems. Due to the apparent effectiveness of these signs, photo radar avoided them when choosing enforcement locations. The city's reaction to that fact being pointed out an requests for more speed signing is to remove all existing signing. It is very much apparent that the city prefers ticketing over speed limit signing.

Original Sign Request E-Mail Sent To City

From: Chris Sweryda [mailto:csweryda@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2012 12:19 AM To: Steen, Thomas Subject: Hespeler Speed Signing
Dear Councillor Steen, I am writing to you to request speed limit signs on Hespeler Ave which is a regional road, truck route and a city route. At this time, there are no speed limit signs on this road because the city has taken the position that it is 50 unless otherwise posted. Traffic very commonly tends to speed along Hespeler due to its important status and it runs between two 60 km/h roads (Henderson and Main). As a constant reminder of the speeding problem, there is a very profitable camera at Beatrice and daily photo radar west of Silvia. Other roads crossing Henderson Hwy such as McLeod and Springfield do have maximum 50 signs, so it is apparent that the city can use them selectively. Neither of those roads carry nearly as much traffic or share the same status (regional, truck route, city route) as Hespeler Ave. Often, small residential streets in other areas of the city such as Argue Street, Parker Ave, Wellington Crescent or Riverside Drive have maximum 50 km/h speed signing. Considering the fact that maximum 50 signs can be selectively used, I ask you to please take the measures necessary to see these very much needed signs installed on Hespeler Ave. In addition, other cities such as Saskatoon make it a continuous practice to put speed signs on roads facing traffic leaving an intersection with a higher speed road regardless of its status. This is an obvious signing need that should be recognized in Winnipeg; especially for high volume roads. The best case situation would be to have four maximum 50 signs installed in the following locations: 1 - Eastbound on light standard at SW side of intersection with Glenwood for traffic leaving Redwood Bridge 2 - Eastbound on 2nd light standard east of Beatrice (right after bus stop) 3 - Westbound west of lane west of Henderson on post currently holding Route 37 west marker which could be moved to post holding parking control signs between Henderson and lane east of Henderson 4 - Westbound west of Beatrice (no existing pole) Those locations would be the best, but I would be happy with whatever you can get. These locations also ensure that only one sign post would need to be installed which would ensure minimum expense to the city. These signs are important not just for the safety of the children in the playground zone, but also for more fairness towards drivers who are being continually ticketed on Hespeler Ave. If a simple speed limit sign will deter someone from speeding, they were never a real speeder and having people slow down should be the ultimate goal of the city and the photo radar program. Enforcement revenue is simply not worth the loss of safety and anyone who speeds with these signs present is well deserving of a ticket. Thanks, Chris Sweryda 204-801-9239

Response From City of Winnipeg

From: tnyhof@winnipeg.ca To: csweryda@hotmail.com Subject: RE: Hespeler Speed Signing Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:59:58 +0000

Hi Chris, Sorry for the delay in replying, its taken a while for us to get a response from our Traffic department. The City of Winnipeg is not in favour of deviating from our practice when it comes to posting speed limits and would therefore not support placing Maximum 50 signs on Hespeler. Where possible, we are working towards addressing some of the historical exceptions that exist in the City particularly on the Regional Street network. Specific to the email below, we completed a review of the speed limit signing situation on Springfield Road yesterday. Some of the Maximum 50 signs on Springfield were installed temporarily when the speed limit was changed from 60 km/h to 50 km/h on Springfield Road between Gateway and Lagimodiere when the Chief Peguis extension opened. We will be removing those signs in the next week as well as any other 50 km/h signs on Springfield that are not consistent with our practice. We have not yet completed a review of the situation on McLeod.

Kind Regards, Leah Cowan on behalf of Timothy Nyhof Assistant to Councillor Thomas Steen Elmwood-East Kildonan Ward

January 14, 2013 City of Winnipeg Public Works 101-1155 Pacific Ave Winnipeg, Man R3E 3P1 Dear Public Works, RE: SPEED LIMIT SIGN REPLACEMENT Please consider this letter and attached petition as a request to reinstall the speed limit signs removed from Springfield Road and McLeod Ave during the last week of November 2012. Speed limit signs serve as a visual reminder to drivers to slow down and are especially effective on streets that intersect higher speed roads. Springfield and McLeod previously had speed limit signs but they were removed in response to a request to have signs put on Hespeler which referenced the signs on Springfield and McLeod. The city website states that posting Maximum 50 km/h signing outside of speed reductions will erode the 50 unless otherwise posted rule which is why these signs were removed. Despite this claim, the city posted 6 of these signs in 2010 with driver feedback signs. The mayor claimed that these signs were "begging people to just slow down." These six signs didn't erode the 50 unless otherwise posted rule and neither would having speed signs on Springfield. In addition, the city is still installing 50 km/h signing on other roads with five being added during the summer of 2012. Also, every city across the country uses Maximum 50 signing to serve as a visual reminder to drivers to slow down and to reinforce the speed limit without eroding the 50 unless otherwise posted rule. As you are aware, similar to the 50 unless otherwise posted rule, no road in Winnipeg is a truck route unless signed as. This positive marking system means that the, "Not A Truck Route" sign is not required. With, "Not A Truck Route" signs outnumbering Maximum 50 signs by 3:1, it appears that the city places a much higher priority on reminding truckers to stay on truck routes than to remind all road users to "Just Slow Down." In fact, this prioritization is most evident on McLeod with the city leaving the, "Not A Truck Route" signs while removing the Maximum 50 km/h signs. The city doesn't claim to erode the positive marking system for truck routes by posted extra signing and therefore should have no problem posting extra signing for speed limits. According to Manitoba Public Insurance, speeding is a contributing factor in 25% of fatal collisions and costs millions of dollars in claims. There is no indication of how many crashes are caused by trucks going off truck routes which further indicates that speed control should be the bigger priority. The city repeatedly claims that they want drivers to, "Just Slow Down." This campaign can only be truly seen as a safety initiative when signing is present on our roads. Speed signs are much more effective than enforcement because unlike police and photo radar, they are there 24/365. Speed signing also prevents the problem rather than enforcing a problem that first has to exist. It is much safer to not have a driver speed than to ticket them once they have already sped. The city website states that speed humps cannot be installed along snow routes, transit routes or collector roads. Springfield carries all three of those designations meaning that even if residents supported it, speed humps could never be installed. Due to this, Springfield should qualify for speed limit signs since normal traffic calming measures cannot be used. Roads that carry these designations typically carry much higher traffic volumes than the average street and have many more speeding problems. It is unreasonable that small streets can receive speed humps while these larger roads currently do not qualify for any type of traffic calming including speed limit signs.

In addition, the negative effects of speed humps on snow removal activities, emergency response times and other traffic are not present with signs. The only effects of these signs are positive. Speed limit signs are also much more cost effective to install than speed humps and should be the traffic calming alternative for larger roads. When it was stated that the signs would be removed from Springfield, a petition was started to gather support from local residents. All residences along Springfield were visited with 208 out of 279 or 75% agreeing to sign the petition. This shows that the public overwhelmingly supports having speed signing on their road. Since speed humps are installed with 70% support on a qualifying street, it is my request that this value be respected for speed signs as well. With such high support and because Springfield doesn't qualify for any other forms of traffic calming, there is no reason to not reinstall these signs. Springfield is very much prone to having drivers speed due to it intersecting Henderson, Raleigh and Gateway which are all 60 km/h zones. It is also an open road with regional status and has no stop signs, curves or other barriers to slow traffic. The five signs that have been removed and are requested to be reinstalled are on Springfield eastbound east of Henderson, eastbound east of Rothesay, eastbound east of Gateway, westbound west of Raleigh and westbound west of Rothesay. I am also requesting that considering the high amount of support shown for signing to remain on Springfield, that the signs removed from McLeod can also be replaced without the need for a petition. Please contact me after review of this letter as I would like to know what the city's decision is regarding this petition. I look forward to your response and can be reached at csweryda@hotmail.com. Sincerely,

Chris Sweryda Enclosures (2): List of all Springfield addresses with signing status, signed petition cc: cc: cc: cc: Jeff Browaty, Councillor for North Kildonan Bonnie Mitchelson, MLA for North Kildonan Thomas Steen, Councillor for Elmwood Mayor's Office

Springfield Speed Limit Sign Petition

For safety and the purposes of reminding road users of the speed limit, we the following citizens of Winnipeg and residents/workers of Springfield Road and area petition to the city to NOT remove the five speed limit signs currently placed along our road. These selective speed limit signs are used by all major cities to reinforce the speed limit and are especially useful to remind drivers turning from higher speed roads such as Henderson, Raleigh, Gateway. Name Signature Address Date