SUNDRE – A second study conducted late this summer throughout a 10-week period yielded data that is “very consistent” with trends previously identified in another effort to track traffic volumes and motorist speeds along the Highway 27-Main Avenue corridor in Sundre.
“This one was conducted on the east side of town,” said community peace officer Sam Zhao on Oct. 23 during a presentation to council, adding the first study that wrapped up earlier in the summer was done on the municipality’s west side.
The latest study involved mounting a radar device along the shoulder of Highway 27 at 6th Street SE to gauge vehicle speeds as well as monitor the number of eastbound motorists heading out of town during the summer tourist season from July 10 to Sept. 17, Zhao told council.
The sign was also programmed to display the speed of passing vehicles in real-time.
But that portion of road did present some challenges, he said before breaking down a statistical analysis of all the data.
“We could not put the radar speed sign up for vehicles coming into town because there’s nothing to mount it on. So, it was chosen to (monitor) eastbound traffic leaving town,” he said.
Another hurdle stemmed from the fact that section of road is two lanes in either direction, meaning vehicles have the potential to block others and thereby skew the data, he said.
“So, the spot that was chosen was right on a curve,” he said. “This spot was also chosen because it is the curve right before that straightaway stretch when people usually like to speed up going outside of town.”
As the municipality is currently overseeing a major project to overhaul underground infrastructure through the downtown core with construction work reducing the road to one lane with alternating directions of traffic, the limit there is 30 kilometres an hour (km/h).
But throughout town, the Highway 27-Main Avenue corridor’s posted speed limit is under regular circumstances 50 km/h.
“The data is very consistent with our last study,” said Zhao. “What it tells us is during the week, the busiest times alternate between that lunchtime rush and the after-work rush hour.”
On weekends, the busiest time of day tends to range between 1 and 2 p.m.
“Over the course of these 10 weeks, we had about 220,000 cars that went by,” he said.
Whereas the last study tracked the number and speed of vehicles as motorists were driving into town from the west, this study monitored outgoing traffic, he said.
After crunching the numbers, Zhao compiled a report complete with graphs – available in full in council’s agenda package on the municipality’s website – that illustrate the situation. Out of more than 200,000 vehicles, he said only about 1,000 were travelling at 70 km/h, with the odd one going at even more excessive speeds.
“But they are statistically outliers,” he said.
The average speed, he added, is 47 km/h, while the 85th percentile is 56 km/h. Meanwhile, the percentage of vehicles going at speeds greater than 70 km/h is 0.0045 per cent, he said.
“It’s interesting to see that during the work day between 8 and about 6 o’clock, people really don’t speed,” he said. “It’s only when you get to those midnight hours – 2, 3, 4 o’clock – that we typically see higher speeds.”
Following Zhao’s presentation, Coun. Jaime Marr asked if his department had looked into the possibility of obtaining a temporary mount of some kind that would enable the ability to place the radar device in locations that do not otherwise have an existing structure to temporarily attach it to.
The peace officer said that would certainly be possible, and that one such option might include a mount that is compatible with a trailer that could be moved wherever needed.
“We can look into that,” he said.
Coun. Chris Vardas heaped praise on the peace officer’s report with a specific mention of the graphs that illustrated the details gleaned from all the data.
“I was quite impressed to see how we are such law-abiding drivers out there,” said Vardas.
Mayor Richard Warnock said the numbers offer some perspective.
“We all drive the streets and we see the odd vehicle exceeding the speed limit or passing us,” he said.
But by and large, he said the majority of motorists either largely maintain the speed limit or remain at reasonable speeds within 10 kph of the posted limit.
“When you look at the numbers, this is something that really works well and resonates with our residents,” the mayor said, adding he looks forward to seeing more similar studies done in other parts of town.
Council carried a motion approving the peace officer’s report as information.
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