Lower speed limits are coming to more than a dozen residential streets throughout Saint John.

City staff recommend the speed limit on 14 streets throughout SaintJOhn be reduced to 40 kilometres per hour.

That includes Douglas Avenue, MacLaren Boulevard, King Street East, and part of Ragged Point Road.

Last week, Common Council approved the final reading of bylaw changes to make the lower speed limit official.

Just over a year ago, public safety committee members and council endorsed a recommendation that speed limits be reviewed on at least 20 streets and be lowered to 40 kilometres per hour on “several” of them.

Tim O’Reilly, the city’s director of transportation, told committee members in September that staff assessed 21 streets and determined 14 of them should have a lower speed limit.

Seven other streets that were also assessed will not see any changes, he said.

“Setting arbitrarily low speed limits comes with public safety risk and could put unnecessary further pressure on our police force as there could be compliance issues even by more reasonable drivers,” O’Reilly told the committee.

O’Reilly said it has been well documented that the physical characteristics of a street are the best way to reduce speeds.

The more driveways, curbs, knolls, and narrow lanes a road has, the more slowly motorists tend to drive, he said.

O’Reilly also noted that residential streets assessed for a change in speed limit would not be discounted from exploring traffic calming measures

“We’ll likely do more next year. We’ll do more every year,” O’Reilly said when asked if more residential streets will be reviewed for a lower speed limit.

Our ability to do as many as we can will depend on priorities, resources applied, but we will continue to do more as resources allow.”

Streets with new 40 km/h speed limit:

• Anglin Drive
• Barbara Crescent
• Bayard Drive
• Brookview Crescent
• Carmarthen Street
• Craig Crescent
• Douglas Avenue
• Edith Avenue
• Hawthorne Avenue
• King Street East
• MacLaren Boulevard
• Ragged Point Road (from 370 metres north of Woodward Avenue to the northern limit of Ragged Point Road)
• Wellesley Avenue
• Westgate Drive

Streets assessed but not recommended for speed reduction:

• Anderson Avenue
• Bon Accord Drive
• Cedarwood Drive
• Danells Drive
• Mount Pleasant Avenue
• Ocean Drive
• Parkhill Drive