Officials elected on Salt Spring Island are once again reaching out to the province to request lower speed limits in Ganges, this time targeting the village’s side streets — where 50 km/h is still permitted.
Salt Spring’s Local Community Commission (LCC) unanimously approved a plan to request — through the Capital Regional District Board — lowering the limit throughout the Ganges core to match the 30 km/h set on Fulford-Ganges and Lower Ganges roads, the village’s main thoroughfare.
The slower speed limits currently begin on Fulford-Ganges Road at Seaview Avenue — next to Embe Bakery — and end at the north end of town, approximately 100 metres past the intersection with Rainbow Road. Commissioners now hope the Ministry of Transportation and Transit will approve a new reduction in speeds for Rainbow Road — from Lower Ganges Road to the Rainbow Recreation Centre parking lot — and for the entirety of Jackson, Hereford, McPhillips and Seaview Avenues.
“It’s incongruous to have a different speed limit,” said LCC member Brian Webster at the commission’s meeting Thursday, Feb. 19, “where you can go 50 on a very short street, with all kinds of parking situations and pedestrians, and only 30 on the main drag. This request just makes sense.”
A reduction in speeds throughout Ganges was among several “low-cost, high-impact” recommendations of an Active Transportation Plan released in July 2023.
The LCC at that time sent a letter to the ministry almost immediately upon receiving the report, asking the “main drag” limit be capped — and the new 30 km/h zone went into effect relatively swiftly, with signs posted near the end of September that same year.
On Thursday, commissioners also advanced a request for additional signage and bright paint around drainage grates that run along the new stretch of Ganges Hill — as cyclists have indicated the grates present a hazard — and for the resumption of the BC Active Transportation Infrastructure Grants program in 2026.