HALIFAX -- Commuters in the Halifax area will have to closely watch their speed when travelling through one neighbourhood.
Starting Wednesday, the speed limit in the Fairmount subdivision has been reduced from 50 km/h to 40 km/h.
The reduction in speed is welcome news for residents who say speeding is an issue.
"They race up and down the road here all the time, driving too fast," said area resident Norm Publicover.
Fairmount is the first neighbourhood in the Halifax Regional Municipality to have a reduced speed limit.
"It makes it safer for children going to school and for pedestrians walking on the street," Publicover said. "We have no sidewalks here."
The default speed limit on public roadways is 50 km/h, however, the Motor Vehicle Act allows for the municipality to request posted speed limits below 50 km/h.
"This initiative is part of council's focus on making residential communities safer by lowering speeds in residential communities and it's also part of the municipality's road safety actions to move towards zero injuries and fatalities for people using any mode of transportation," said HRM spokesperson Brynn Budden.
Martyn Williams is with the group HRM Safe Streets For Everyone. He says lowering the speed limit is one step, but more needs to be done to make sure people slow down in what he calls the most dangerous areas.
"Most incidents happen not on residential streets, but on these roads like Lacewood, where people are going -- I don't think anyone obeys the speed limit here -- so it'd be well above 50 kilometres per hour, and that's why you may have a fatality, because people are travelling at high speeds," Williams said.
It's expected to take about a week for new signage to be in place around the Fairmount neighbourhood.
Meanwhile, the city says municipal staff continue work to assess other neighbourhoods in HRM to see if the speed should be reduced elsewhere in the future.
If municipal staff do identify another area where they believe the speed limit should be reduced in the city, they will need to submit an application to the province, which will then consider the request.
