Abstract Manager

Speeding is one of the most common contributing factors to traffic collisions. In order to improve road safety and enhance neighbourhood liveability, the City of Edmonton lowered the default residential speed limit from 50 km/h to 40 km/h in 2021. This reduction was supported by funding for adaptable and permanent traffic calming to improve speed limit compliance. The presentation will focus on two case studies that were able to further improve the speed limit compliance within residential neighbourhoods: Silver Berry Road and Gault Boulevard.

Silver Berry Road is a 3 km collector roadway with a history of speeding and collisions. Through the City’s Street Lab program, adaptable measures including temporary curb extensions and centre medians were designed and installed. The case study will include how the traffic calming measures were selected, the results of the evaluation, and the process of converting them to permanent.

Gault Boulevard is a 500 m roadway with wide lanes and a continuous centre median. Through the Speed Hump and Table program, asphalt speed tables were installed. The case study will share why the road was prioritized, design constraints, how the locations were selected and the results of the evaluation.  

For each project, before and after traffic data were collected to measure the effectiveness of the measures. The presentation is intended to share Edmonton’s experience in traffic calming design practices, project outcomes as well as important lessons learnt. Edmonton’s experience shows that designing for reduced speeds is possible, even on higher order roadways like collectors.