City already has power to drop speed limits: NDP
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The province’s transportation minister says municipalities have the power to lower their own speed limits — but that the NDP government is always looking to make things safer.
Last week, Brandon City Council voted to send a letter to Municipal and Northern Relations Minister Glen Simard asking for the power to set the city’s own default speed limit.
The letter was also sent to Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor and related provincial departments.
Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor says municipalities don’t need provincial approval to change their own bylaws. (Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press files)
“We are always happy to work with municipalities, particularly when it’s related to the safety of Manitobans, but municipalities do have the power to change their own bylaws and do not need provincial approval to do so,” Naylor said in a statement to the Sun last week.
In urban areas provincewide, the default speed limit is set at 50 kilometres an hour, while in rural areas it is set at 90 km/h.
Currently, Brandon council can lower the speed limit on roads by placing signs at every intersection, but it would cost the city $2.25 million for the 4,000 signs and posts, council was told last week.
A city official at last week’s council meeting said doing that would be “fiscally irresponsible.”
Asked at an unrelated event in Brandon on Tuesday, Simard echoed part of Naylor’s statement.
“Cities and municipalities have the option to be able to implement speed restrictions as they wish,” he told the Sun.
“Being minister for municipalities, I think one of the important parts is that they exercise that mature government authority that they have.”
The City of Winnipeg sent a similar letter to the province last month.
Simard said he’s anxious to see what the cities have written.
“They can do this tomorrow if they wish. It’s just a matter of following the proper processes. And we’ll follow closely.”
He said municipal governments know their communities best, which is why the current system works the way it does.
When asked if the provincial government lowering the urban speed limit across Manitoba is on the table, Simard said not as of now, and reiterated that municipalities can make their own changes.
Brandon’s transportation and traffic planner said he’s encouraged that Naylor said the province is happy to work with municipalities.
“That’s very encouraging to hear,” Sam van Huizen said.
“We’re anticipating that Minister Naylor and Minister Simard, the addressees of our letter, will be in touch with more detail, and their teams will start the collaboration process starting today,” he said on Tuesday.
Van Huizen said he has been in touch with his colleagues in Winnipeg to ensure there is collaboration between both cities.
“The ball is in the court of the province to respond to this letter to the cities and get the ball rolling with regards to what the future holds regarding default speed limits,” he said.
“If there’s meetings to be had or discussions to be had, we’re ready to come to the table.”
He said Brandon’s goal is to collaborate and work with the province.
The city doesn’t have a specific timeline for when it would want to make changes, van Huizen said.
Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said lowering the default speed limit isn’t something that would happen anytime soon, but the letters are going out for further discussion.
“I think the discussion is the default speed limit to 40 (km/h) on specific roadways, and I think we are looking just for a little bit more input from the province on that,” Fawcett said.
He said Brandon is following the City of Winnipeg’s lead on the issue.
“If we were doing this, it would be something that obviously would be taken on better at a provincial level than having different cities with different priorities,” he said.
In the meantime, the city will continue to implement traffic calming measures in certain areas of the city, van Huizen said.
Those measures include installing speed humps on McDonald Avenue and temporary curbs in various parts of the city.
The areas targeted will be where some drivers aren’t complying with the 50 km/h speed limit, he said.
A City of Winnipeg spokesperson declined to comment.
» alambert@brandonsun.com