Improving Road Safety

The Project:

The District of Squamish is committed to improving road safety for all road users. Improving safety on our roads supports a variety of shared community values:

Community input received through the ongoing Transportation Master Plan process has indicated community interest in reducing vehicle speeds where pedestrians, especially school children, walk, ride, and roll. Input indicated particular concern for pedestrian safety where there are no sidewalks available. This input has informed the development of a series of options to achieve safer roads:

Of the three options above, we are seeking public input specifically on #1 (Speed Limit Reductions) over the coming weeks. Please read on to get involved and consider contributing to this important discussion.

Why consider speed limit reductions?

Reducing speed limits has many benefits, including improving road safety and community livability, among others. Speeding is the top contributing factor to car crash fatalities in B.C. The faster a vehicle travels, the longer it takes to stop – and the more dangerous a crash can be.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) City Limits report states that vehicle speed at the time of impact is directly correlated to whether a person will live or die. Data underlying this report was converted to kilometres per hour which results in the following statistics:

A pedestrian hit by a vehicle travelling at 50 kilometres per hour has a 50% chance of severe injury or death, at 40 kilometres per hour that number drops to 30%, and at 30 kilometres per hour it drops to 15%. Reducing speeds improves road safety for all road users.

Community Input Opportunities

Community input is critical to establish an approach to speed limits that the community is comfortable with while balancing the safety benefits of speed reduction. This will help the project team understand what the “just right zone” is between speed and safety for our community.

We are now seeking more input from residents of all ages, neighbourhoods, and transportation preferences (pedestrians - including those walking to/from and waiting at transit stops, cyclists, micro mobility users, and drivers)

This input will help us understand where speed limit reductions would be best supported by the community, and to what extent speeds may be reduced.

Community input will help shape the approach to establishing speed limits in Squamish.

• The five-minute survey will be open for 3 weeks until 4pm on Thursday, July 11.
• Paper surveys are available at Municipal Hall and must be returned by July 8th to be included in our summary.
• Find us at Junction Park on Saturday, June 29 from 10am-2pm or at London Drugs on Wednesday, July 10 from 3:30-5:00 pm to speak with the project team, learn more and provide input.

The results of both digital and in-person feedback, along with preferred speed limit reduction options and scenarios, will be shared with the community later this summer and will be brought forward to Council this fall.

Past Community Input: mapping exercise (closed April 8)

This stage of input invited residents to identify specific areas of speed concern through a mapping tool.

The input received helped the speed reduction project team better understand areas of perceived safety concern and indicated that these safety concerns occur along all classifications of roads within the District. Community input found that 32% of concerns fell within 10m of a collector road, and nearly half (48%) fell within 10m of a local road. This, coupled with ICBC Crash Data, demonstrate where both real and perceived safety issues are found.

A summary of what we heard is available here.