Several expenses within the Texas Legislature may make it more uncomplicated for towns to decrease velocity limits on residential streets.
After advancing from the committee final week, Senate Bill 1663 proposes that towns can cut back velocity limits on residential streets to twenty mph with out present process dear visitors checks. A similar bill may be shifting during the state House.
The objective of those expenses is to extend protection for pedestrians — decrease speeds imply fewer fatalities. According to AAA (by way of Axios), the danger of dying is 10% at 23 mph, nevertheless it jumps to twenty-five% at 35 mph and continues to extend as the velocity is going up.
Currently, state legislation lets in counties to decrease velocity limits on residential streets in unincorporated spaces to twenty-five mph, on the other hand, towns must habits visitors research, enforcement investigations and different expensive duties ahead of taking motion. These expenses would give towns the similar privileges as counties.
At a invoice listening to, Kathy Sokolic, who leads Central Texas Families for Safe Streets, shared the tale of her nephew, Ben, who was once struck via a driving force close to his space on the age of 9. He succumbed to accidents associated with the crash 5 years later. Sokolic feels that the velocity restrict of 30 mph close to her circle of relatives’s space, positioned in a deliberate group with a large number of youngsters and leisure amenities, was once too rapid.
According to knowledge from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Dallas has the second-highest price of visitors fatalities. In 2021, Dallas had a complete of 228 traffic-related deaths, out of which 61 had been pedestrians. In Fort Worth, out of 128 visitors deaths in 2021, 38 had been pedestrians.
But some adversarial the invoice for being “too broad.” Rachel Hale, who represented the Texas Eagle Forum right through a contemporary listening to, mentioned the expenses give towns the “unilateral power to lower speed limits on highways, which are not designated part of the state highway system, down to 20 mph.”
The invoice moved out of the Senate Transportation Committee final week and awaits a vote from the total Senate.