Title
Consider and take action on an Ordinance to set a 35 MPH speed limit along West Walker Street from the intersection with SH 3 to the westernmost driveway of the City’s Public Safety Building, a distance of approximately 0.33 miles (Director of Engineering)
Background:
Approval of this item will set a 35 MPH speed limit on W. Walker Street from the intersection of SH 3 to the westernmost driveway of the City’s Public Safety Building. Between July 17th and 23rd of 2019, City Staff performed a traffic study of this area of W. Walker Street. The existing speed limit along W. Walker Street within this area is 25 MPH. Examination of the study showed that eastbound traffic averaged approximately 2,360 vehicles per day and westbound traffic averaged approximately 2,550 vehicles per day. The study also revealed that the 85th Percentile of vehicles measured during the study was 33 MPH.
The 85th Percentile speed means the speed at or below which 85% of all vehicles are observed to travel under free-flowing conditions. This is one of the standards used by Traffic and Transportation Engineers to set speed limits at a safe speed, minimizing crashes and promoting uniform traffic flow along a given traffic corridor. Some of the other standards used to set speed limits are (1) lane and shoulder configurations/widths, (2) presence of vertical/horizontal curves, (3) sight distances, and (4) surrounding developments.
In 2018, Staff had this corridor of W. Walker Street restriped, creating a dedicated left turn lane between the driveways of City Hall and SH 96. Also, just west of the City’s Public Safety Building, the speed limit increases from 25 MPH to 35 MPH. With the uniformity of the travel lanes allowing for better traffic flow and the result of the July 2019 speed study, Staff is recommending increasing the speed limit to 35 MPH for this corridor of W. Walker Street.
The Police Department has reviewed the results of the traffic study and concurs with Staff's recomm...
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