I read with great interest this week about the City of Edmonton’s new residential speed reduction pilot. Speed limits have been on my radar since late last year when Patricia Grell of the Woodcroft community started her Safe Speed Limits blog. She and many others have been pushing for a reduction to 30km/h on residential streets. The pilot goes half way, to 40km/h, and will take place in six Edmonton neighbourhoods: Woodcroft, Beverley Heights, Ottewell, King Edward Park, Westridge/Wolf Willow and Twin Brooks.
Those communities were selected based on “the extent of the speeding problem” as well as traffic volume, the number of playgrounds and schools, etc. The City consulted with the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues to identify community leagues that would be willing to participate. EFCL Executive Director Allan Bolstad told me that community leagues will act as the “window into the neighbourhoods”, both to help inform and educate, as well as gather feedback on how well the program is working. He said the community leagues will meet mid-March to start implementation, and will continue to meet regularly to evaluate.
The City of Edmonton already has traffic safety programs of course, and they will be integrated into the pilot. Specifically, Speed Watch (which shows drivers their speed), Neighbourhood Pace Cars (vehicles that act as mobile speed bumps), and Safe Speed Community Vans will all be used. Dan Jones from the City’s Office of Traffic Safety said there will also be digital readout speed trailers (like the ones you see at construction sites) and of course, new traffic signs.
He also confirmed that the projected cost for the pilot is $100,000 per neighbourhood. I’m in favor of reducing speed limits, if only so that police officers can ticket people at 50km/h instead of the current 60km/h, but when I heard that figure I thought it sounded rather expensive. Allan Bolstad said he too was “puzzled” by the amount. If I understand things correctly, only the signs are new – the other programs already exist and presumably already have the appropriate funding. Which begs the question – how much do traffic signs cost?
To find out, I talked to Rick MacAdams from Edmonton-based hi signs. They manufacture a wide range of signs, including the speed limit signs you’d see around town. Their speed limit sign, the RB-1, comes in two versions: one with a high intensity reflective film and one with a “diamond grade” reflective film (both films are 3M products). The first costs $76.70 per sign while the diamond grade one costs $109.38. That’s if you’re buying one or two signs; there are discounts for large volume orders, of course.
Next question – how many signs are required in each neighbourhood? I decided to go to Google Maps, to count the number of straight street segments in a couple of the neighbourhoods. I took that number, and multiplied it by two (so we have signs for each direction). The range I came up with was between 60 and 120 signs per neighbourhood. You can probably do the math, but at 120 signs per neighbourhood, using the highest price per sign, the total comes to $13,125.60 per neighbourhood. So a grand total for the pilot of $78,753.60. Nowhere close to the $100,000 per neighbourhood that has been projected!
Now this back-of-the-napkin analysis leaves a number of things out. For one, the time and cost required to have crews post the signs in each neighbourhood. For another, the cost of the digital speed readout trailers. There will also likely be marketing costs. But it also leaves out the fact that the City of Edmonton has its own sign creation department, so the cost per sign is probably far less than what hi signs would charge. And my analysis probably significantly overestimates the number of signs required for each neighbourhood.
So I’m left happy but confused and maybe even a little alarmed. Happy that the City has heard residents and is testing residential speed limit reductions to see if it improves community safety. Confused because I can’t imagine why this pilot will cost $600,000.
MasterMaq's Blog 
Labour is probably the biggest cost here.
To cut costs they should only install new signs at the entrances to the neighbourhoods where none exist and simply replace the ‘5’ on existing signs with a sticker that has a ‘4’ on it. This would cut labour costs and reduce the amount of signage that would be required.
I wonder how much consultants are getting paid out of this amount?
I briefly considered making a similar remark Aaron 🙂
Mack you forgot labour to install the signs!
I did mention in my post that I didn’t include labor to post the signs. But really, would it add up to $525,000 to post $75,000 worth of signs? That seems ridiculous.
I read your blog regularly, but there has never been a story that has upset this much. That much money is totally ridiculous… you should feed it to the Ed. Journal or CTV news… thanks for looking into this.
Thanks for reading Jim! I’m sure they saw it on Twitter, but you’re welcome to pass it along as well 😉
I’m curious as to why they need to replace the entire sign. Aren’t they just vinyl? Can’t you just cover them up?
And what happens to the old signs? The tip?
Hi Mack – the budget of $100,000 does include the costs of traffic signs, but also includes, but is not limited to, other costs including Digital Messaging Signs (electronic signs that include radar devices to flash speeds of passing motorists), Engineering, Education, and Enforcement.
Another important element is evaluation. Throughout the pilot project the City will be carefully measuring and evaluating how we can best reduce speeding in Edmonton’s communities.
The cost of producing, printing, and installing new signage is only a fraction of the cost of the total budget. With any project we work extremely hard to get excellent value out of every tax dollar spent.
If you are interested I can provide you with more budget details on Monday.
– Ben
City of Edmonton
@Ben
Thanks for commenting! I think everyone would like a break-down of that $100,000 number. I’m always suspicious when costs come to such round (and high) numbers…!
Ben, thanks very much for the comment. I talked with Jas about this on Friday after work, and he mentioned some of the same things you did.
I’d love to see more details about the budget, and I would be happy to post that info here, but I’d first suggest that this might make a great post on Transforming Edmonton!
(Not to mention a good use case/case study for your team…)
After doing some fact checking I have found:
The cost of the project is approximately $100K per community.
The cost involves the creation and placement of signage to inform residents and drivers of the new 40 km/h speed limits. Design costs, negotiating utility right-of-ways, adherence to provincial legislation and nationally-established criteria, numbers of signs to be placed and actual installation all figure into the final cost. Simply stated, there are a lot of considerations that must be made any time we introduce new sign placements.
The purchase of speed data collection equipment is also included in the projected budget.
In all cases, the City of Edmonton is diligent about granting contracts (through a fair and transparent competitive process) to those companies who provide best value for the product required.
For more information, I would encourage you to stay tuned for when this report goes to the Transportation Public Works (TPW) Committee Meeting on Tuesday, March 2.
View streaming video online: http://ecity/ecitynews/city-hall-online.aspx
Good day!
Do having a traffic sign will cost that much.
Road signs are signs erected at the side of roads to provide information to road users.
can i ask somebody, how much is the cost of one set of road sign?
Well you’l usually have 2 or 3 guys working it.
Gotta dig a deep hole for the post, put the post in, attach the sign. Probably at least half an hour or so of work per sign at a bare minimum. And the workers aren’t gonna be making minimum wage. even give em $10 an hour each for argument’s sake and your at an additional 10+ per sign.
Gotta pay them for driving from spot to spot, pay for fuel+equipment usage, thats a few dollars more
Actually, the sign post itself might be part of what’s missing, those things a big pieces of steel, good 40 lbs at least. At scrap prices that’s an additional $6 per sign.
probably an additional $20 or so per sign from just that stuff. Rough ballpark figure rather than anything accurate of course.