By James Sinclair
Traffic-calming measures may be to blame for increased emergency response times in Centretown, says a new study presented to the city’s Community Services and Operations Committee.
The study, presented at a meeting Oct. 11, suggests that vertical traffic-calming measures put in Centretown, such as the speed bumps constructed on Lyon Street two years ago, have slowed emergency response times in the area.
While emergency response times have decreased in Sandy Hill and Britannia, the report says, in Centretown there have been no improvements to response times and in southern Centretown times have actually increased since traffic-calming measures were implemented
Fire, police and ambulance services were hoping the study, which recommends that speed bumps not be put on major streets identified as emergency routes, be used as a basis for a traffic-calming policy to be developed next year by the new City of Ottawa.
Traffic-calming measures on major roads delay response times, cause injuries and damage vehicles, says Perry McConnell, planning chief for the fire department.
“If you take a route like Gladstone or Somerset or Carling Avenue and you start doing any kind of traffic-calming, it does increase our response times whether it’s by 10 seconds or a minute,” he says.
Committee members, however, are not convinced. At the Oct. 11 meeting, members voted to defer the study’s recommendations until further data was collected and until alternatives to speed humps or raised intersections were identified.
Until the study comes back to the committee under the new City of Ottawa, likely next spring, it will not be used as a basis for a traffic-calming policy. The city currently has no policy.
“I think the policy needs to be based on trials that are quantitative and I really don’t want it to just be based on speculation and guesswork,” says City Coun. Elisabeth Arnold.
Arnold says past traffic-calming measures, such as on Lyon Street, have brought speeds down to acceptable levels.
“They’ve definitely been successful in slowing down traffic,” she says. “What their impact has been on other factors is the issue of dispute.”
Emile Therien, head of the Canada Safety Council, says there is no doubt in his mind that speed bumps have slowed emergency response times.
The study used examples of trials done in the United States which found that a single speed bump can add 10 seconds to response time while a series of five bumps can delay emergency response for up to one minute.
The city plans to put speed bumps on smaller city streets not considered emergency response routes, such as McLeod, Waverley, Florence and Arlington.