DRUG-USE AREA: PLEASE SLOW DOWN

In the past, whenever the Downtown Eastside was
mentioned in the same breath as =93 speed,=94 one
assumed the subject was amphetamine.

Times, and addictions, have changed. We are now
talking about drivers. And the new danger they
present is their need to hurtle down East
Hastings at a breakneck 50 km/ h. Speed kills, we
are now being told, especially in the Downtown Eastside.

So this week, Vancouver city council voted to
reduce the speed limit along a six-block section
of East Hastings to 30 km/ h from 50 km/ h. The
goslow zone will run from Abbott to Jackson.

The new limit, which has been brought in on a
trial basis, came after four pedestrian deaths in
the Downtown Eastside this year.

In light of recent years, these deaths were
statistically anomalous. Pedestrian deaths across
the city had trended downward since 2007, when
there were 14 pedestrian deaths ( none of them in
the Downtown Eastside), to 2010, when there were
five ( again, none of them in the Downtown Eastside).

But so far this year, police say there have
already been nine deaths citywide, and nearly
half of those were in the Downtown Eastside. That
was enough of a red flag for a council pushing
pedestrian safety. Or, maybe more to the point,
it was enough for a council in an election year.

The word =93 pedestrian=94 in this case is a
euphemism. City council and its staff leap around
the reality with the nimbleness of Morris
dancers, but what we are talking about here are
drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally ill
ignoring the rules of the road =AD that is,
wandering out into it. And the euphemism used to
describe their condition is =93 compromised
judgment.=94 Language is a wonderful thing.

But is one still a =93 pedestrian=94 if one is so
oblivious to the world that one runs out into
traffic? What, then, does that make the driver?
And if penalties imply fault, who here should be punished?

It doesn't matter who is at fault, the argument goes:

All that matters is that lives are saved.

The police, who will have to enforce the new
limit, don't disagree with this sentiment, just
the means of achieving it. They argue that
traffic along that stretch of East Hastings is
usually below or near 50 km/ h, anyway,
especially during rush hours. ( A survey of
traffic down Hastings found this to be true.)

They maintain, too, that speed has little to do
with pedestrian collisions there. The main
causes, they say, are =93 risky crossings=94 =AD read
into that what you will =AD and, to a lesser
extent, driver inattention. And the police have
another more practical concern: manpower. A new
speed limit will call for heightened enforcement,
stretching an already tight budget.

Vancouver will not be the first major city to
lower speed limits in its downtown area.
Montreal, London, Perth, Singapore, Amsterdam and
Dublin all have versions of them, though they are not without controversy.

In 2010, Dublin installed a 30 km/ h speed limit
in a wide swath of its historic downtown almost
as large as Vancouver's downtown peninsula. After
six months, however, speeds had dropped by an
average of only two km/ h. On some roads, speeds
had actually increased, perhaps due to an absence of traffic.

But does lowering speeds in these areas save
lives? Studies say yes, they do. But here in
Vancouver, the trend until this year was showing
that pedestrian deaths had steadily decreased.
They had decreased without the widespread use of
30 km/ h zones along major arterials. Why did
that decrease happen, one wonders, and why wasn't that taken into account?

No matter. There will be a 30 km/ h speed limit
on a major arterial and commuting route whether
drivers like it or not, or whether it makes sense or not.

And drivers had better get used to it. We have
entered an age where in the name of the
environment and mass transit, the automobile is
being disenfranchised in cities.

Thirty years ago, imposing a 30 km/ h limit on a
major arterial route would have been politically impossible for any reason.

In Vancouver, however, our reason for doing so
surely stands out alone in all the world. We are
slowing traffic to protect the judgmentally
compromised. So entrenched have they become that
the law, in the name of safety, must be designed
around them rather than vice versa.

The city's open drug market now enjoys the same
traffic status as school areas and playgrounds. This is what we have come to