Why Doesn't Centretown have any Speed Cameras?
With the news coming out that Ottawa is adding 20 new speed cameras, bringing the total number of cameras to 60, I was very disappointed to see that Centretown, and all of Somerset Ward, will still remain without a single speed camera.
Every suburban ward has at least one speed camera, with the only other inner city ward without a camera being Kittchsippi Ward. Being the centre of commuter traffic, why doesn’t Centretown have a single speed camera?
Safer Street Design
The simplest and most obvious answer is that many streets in Centretown have no need for speed cameras. Many of the streets have natural traffic calming that makes it difficult to speed: narrow roads, on street parking, street trees, tall buildings, bike lanes, and lots of pedestrians. The high number of cars and traffic on the street also makes speeding difficult. Even some of the urban arterials like Bank Street or Elgin Street, although far from perfect, are well designed enough that the design mostly prevents drivers from speeding.
Lack of Political Will
Streets like Bank and Elgin may prevent speeding better than a typical suburban arterial, but Centretown still has its fair share of problematic stroads, like Metcalfe, Kent or Lyon (Bronson gets a partial pass because it has a speed camera further south).
There’s very much an attitude towards urban areas of no one really “owning” them. Local residents don’t get a say downtown like residents of the suburbs do in the areas they live. This is more clear when you look at a map of arterial roads in Centretown. Every North/South road outside the Golden Triangle except for two (Percy and Bay) are classified as arterial roads, made for prioritizing traffic. The roads of the area prioritize getting off the highway and getting to office jobs quickly instead of road safety or the enjoyment of local neighbours.
This problem can be seen most obviously on Kent Street, which the Centretown Community Association’s Transportation Committee has made their number one priority to fix in the ward. Councillor Ariel Troster has also promised to fix it and is badly trying to, and yet the current city rules don’t allow most of their quicker to implement traffic calming strategies to be used on arterials.
All urban traffic issues are of course exacerbated and made more difficult to change by the suburban and rural wards badly outnumbering the urban wards in votes and how decisions are made at council. If the majority of residents in the city want the option of driving quickly through your neighbourhood, it’s not easy to get that changed.
Density and Length of Roads
Somerset Ward, the ward that includes Centretown, is by far the smallest ward in the city. With a land area of just 13.1 square kilometres, it’s considerably smaller than all suburban wards, most of which are well over 30 square kilometres (with many being much larger). Somerset Ward’s density means that there’s simply more space being used to house people and businesses, and less space being used on roads.
This density benefits Somerset Ward when it comes to the length of roads it has. According to this reddit thread Somerset Ward has the smallest amount of road lane length of all wards, with just 167.496 km. Both of the Barrhaven Wards, which have a combined 10 speed cameras, have 404.520 km (Barrhaven West) and 311.078 km (Barrhaven East) of roads.
With more roads, there’s simply going to be more poorly designed roads, conflict points, and opportunities to place speed cameras.
Camera Soon?
With more speed cameras consistently being added to Ottawa roads, I hope it’s only a matter of time before Centretown gets our first speed camera. Despite the rational reasons for why Centretown doesn’t have any yet, I feel with the other areas that now are getting cameras, Centretown’s time will come soon.