CELPIP Listening Part 6 Practice Test: Slowing Down on Side Streets

NARRATOR: In neighbourhoods across the country, a familiar number on a familiar sign is quietly being replaced. Several Canadian municipalities have lowered the default speed limit on residential streets from fifty kilometres an hour to thirty, and many more are weighing the idea. Supporters describe the change as a modest adjustment with life-saving consequences; critics dismiss it as a symbolic gesture that annoys drivers while doing little to alter their behaviour.

NARRATOR: Among the most vocal proponents is Priya Natarajan, a Hamilton city councillor whose ward includes four elementary schools. She points to research showing that a pedestrian struck at thirty is far more likely to survive than one struck at fifty, and argues that stopping distance alone justifies the change: at the lower speed, a driver who spots a child darting out between parked cars can usually brake in time. Natarajan also contends that calmer streets encourage families to walk and cycle, and that the expense of new signs is trivial compared with a single serious collision. As for complaints about longer commutes, she notes that most trips spend only a minute or two on side streets before reaching main roads, where the limit is unchanged. In her view, the burden of proof should rest on those who want to keep the faster limit, not on the parents who fear it.

NARRATOR: Retired police sergeant Doug Fraser, who spent twenty years in traffic enforcement, doesn't dispute the physics. What he questions is whether a number on a pole actually slows anyone down. In his experience, motorists take their cue from the road itself. A wide, straight street with no trees will be driven at fifty whatever the sign says, and police simply lack the resources to patrol every side street. Fraser fears that rules nobody follows breed contempt for traffic laws in general. He would rather see the money spent on speed humps, narrower lanes and raised crosswalks, which, as he puts it, enforce themselves.

NARRATOR: Natarajan agrees that redesigning streets is the gold standard, but points out that rebuilding a single block can take years and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, while a lower limit can be introduced within weeks. Early data from cities that made the switch appear to bear her out, though the drop in average speeds has been more modest than advocates had hoped. Perhaps the wisest course is to stop treating the paint and the pavement as rivals.