Portland Wants to Rethink Speed Limits By Factoring in Walkers and Bikers | Streetsblog USA

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

For cities trying to get a handle on traffic fatalities, dangerous motor vehicle speeds are an enormous problem. Once drivers exceed 20 mph, the chances that someone outside the vehicle will survive a collision plummet.

But even on city streets where many people walk and bike, streets with 35 or 40 mph traffic are common. Cities looking to reduce lethal vehicle speeds face a number of obstacles — including restrictions on how they can set speed limits. . . .

The Portland Mercury reports that city officials are challenging the “85th percentile rule,” the old traffic engineering practice of measuring travel speeds on a street, then setting the speed limit at the rate that 85 percent of drivers do not exceed.

One of the problems with this practice is that it doesn’t even consider the presence of pedestrians or bicyclists — only the speed at which drivers travel. The whole exercise can simply reinforce and legitimize dangerous driving speeds on poorly designed streets.

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Portland Wants to Rethink Speed Limits By Factoring in Walkers and Bikers | Streetsblog USA