The car-centric legacy of the city of Vancouver has a profound impact on the quality of its residents’ lives. While understanding that new construction and growth can benefit the city of Vancouver, I think it would be hard to find a constituent that isn’t concerned about the current traffic on state Highway 14, state Highway 500, I-205, and I-5, and especially on neighborhood surface streets. All while more and more apartments are being built. Adding additional traffic without any type of traffic-calming measures or expansion of current infrastructure is only going to create more gridlock.
My neighbors and I are extremely concerned about the safety of pedestrian and bicycle traffic, property values, pollution, and the ability of our children to safely cross the street to go to our neighborhood park.
How can we design solutions that ultimately create better places for people, not just their cars? Would you consider lowering the speed limit from 25 mph to 20 mph in residential neighborhoods?
Portland, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and multiple other cities across America have already implemented this life-saving measure. I am sure that you are aware the chance of a person surviving being hit by a car drastically improves at a lower speed limit. It would save more than one life!
