The Town of Okotoks will soon have to slow down ten more kilometers than usual in residential areas.

After Tuesday's meeting, Town Council approved the new speed limit that will effect non-arterial streets.

Mayor Bill Robertson says the residential areas will see most of the drops in speed.

"The motion as it passed [Tuesday] was to make all roads 40 km/h unless otherwise posted, so that basically means we will choose those roads that could be 50 or 60 and post them at the higher speeds," he says.

Residential areas had been at 50 km/h, but Robertson says with a growing community slowing the traffic down increases safety.

"That's really fast for areas that have children potentially playing, people walking down the sidewalks and so on and so all of those streets will be 40 km/h unless otherwise posted."

Robertson says the speed limit change is effective immediately and there is some obvious exceptions to the new 40 km/h speed limit.

"We're just going to the reducing of residential roads in the Town of Okotoks to 40 km/h and in playground zones or school zones those would still be 30 km/h during the affected hours," he says.

The roads that will remain at 50 km/h are Northridge Drive, Southridge Drive, Milligan Drive,  Big Rock Trail and 32 Street.

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