Title
Consider and take action on an Ordinance to set a 30 MPH speed limit along Cross Colony Drive from the intersection with Calder Drive to the intersection with FM 646, a distance of approximately 0.77 miles (Director of Engineering)
Staff requests approval on first and final reading.
Background:
Approval of this item will set a 30 MPH speed limit on Cross Colony Drive from the intersection of Calder Drive to the intersection of FM 646. Between June 21st and June 23rd of 2021, City Staff performed a traffic study of this area of Cross Colony Drive. The existing speed limit along Cross Colony Drive within this area is 25 MPH. Examination of the study showed that eastbound traffic averaged approximately 2,118 vehicles per day and westbound traffic averaged approximately 1,686 vehicles per day. The study also revealed that the 85th Percentile Speed of vehicles measured during the study had a weighted average of 35 MPH for the combined east and west bound lanes.
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 to help in 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.
Cross Colony Drive has been designated as a Collector Road within the City’s Master Mobility Plan. In Chapter 110, Section 166 of the City’s Code of Ordinances, speed limits for collector roadways are to be set at 35 MPH. Based on the traffic data from the 2021 speed study, it appears the current speed limit of 25 MPH is artificially low, but because of how the surrounding areas have been developed and the road’s curvature, a speed limit of 35 MPH does not seem to be...
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