Why are some residential roads 25 mph and others are 30 mph?
Posted by onlycodeposts@reddit | driving | View on Reddit | 16 comments
Do traffic engineers look at these roads and determine the speed limit based on the design?
Or do the people in poor neighborhoods not have the political power to get their speed limits lowered?
WorkingDogAddict1@reddit
Why would anyone want their speedlimits lowered?
Z_Clipped@reddit
Because certain kinds of parents think the entire world should stop what they're doing and eliminate all possible risk to their precious children, rather than them taking a baseline responsibility for parenting.
They will pedantically make the "slow-down" hand motion at any car going over 15mph on their street, but won't think twice about doing 45 in a 25 on any other street outside their neighborhood.
JohnnyD423@reddit
If you can't stop for a dumbass kid or dog running across the road, you're going too fast. Nobody is perfect, and death shouldn't be the consequence of making a mistake if it doesn't need to be.
Z_Clipped@reddit
I've never failed to stop for any road hazard in my 40 years of driving.
But I do know that if you make a habit of angrily waving your hands at random people in cars like you're some kind of special traffic snowflake, you just might find yourself picking a few of your teeth up off the sidewalk, friend.
WorkingDogAddict1@reddit
Yeah that's pretty accurate
anotherFNnewguy@reddit
Pedestrian safety. Maybe they have kids or like to walk themselves. Pedestrians do best around traffic doing 40 kmh (25mph) or less. If they get struck they are more apt to survive. Drivers are more able to react if a kid runs in front of them.
onlycodeposts@reddit (OP)
They usually don't, unless they live on that street.
Berfs1@reddit
Usually safety and fuel efficiency are the two main factors when it comes to speed limits, texas toll roads are an exception.
BikePlumber@reddit
Traditionally, housing developments are 25 mph and residential county roads are 35 mph while built up commercial area city roads are 30 mph.
Lately those are being reduced in speed.
In my town, the residential streets were 25 mph and the two main roads were 25 mph and 30 mph.
Now the 30 mph main road is 25 mph, the other main road is still 25 mph and many residential streets are now 20 mph, if near a school or if the street has a school bus stop on it.
School zone speed limits are now 24 hours, no longer just during school hours.
CockroachCommon2077@reddit
Here in my neighborhood, it's 50 mph then 40 and then 30 on a long stretch. It's because there's a school and the speed zones were added as a retaliation of people driving fast without consequences really all because I believe some dumbass kid decided to go well over 100 mph down a hill and another time someone lost control somehow and went right over a curb into someone's yard and hit and killed a little girl.
Pup111290@reddit
Some here are 35, 40, or 45. I think it depends a lot on density, design, and size
SufficientTill3399@reddit
25mph is usually the standard default speed for residential and other built-up areas. However, some residential roads that are built to a higher standard than most residential roads are signed at 30 or even 35mph due to also serving as thoroughfares between neighborhoods. You’re not likely to see anything above 25mph on roads that don’t even have a painted divider, and for good reason because extra care is needed to avoid head-on collisions. OFC, the other concern is that residential roads have high concentrations of pedestrians and lots of driveways (and thus people backing out).
Z_Clipped@reddit
This is a hilariously American problem. Almost every other country in the world eschews painted dividers on most secondary roads with no issues, but the moment you take those double yellow lines away, 90% of Americans have no idea what to do, and start taking blind hills driving down the center of a 24-foot wide roadway.
And those exact same Americans are also hilariously panicky and white-knuckled about passing on single-lane roads when the lines are there, even when there's 3/4 mile of visibility and nobody coming. It's so weird.
cynical-rationale@reddit
Where I am that's equivalent roughly to 40 to 50km.
We have both zones. Majority are 30mph/50km. The ones that are 25mph/40 are due to accidents, school zoning, etc. They lowered an entire area in my city to 25mph due to 3 deaths in the last 2 years. Lots of pubs nearby, dimly lit, people speed, lots of children and elderly. They made wide curbs as well and added more lights.
Z_Clipped@reddit
Every state and municipality has its own basic design guidelines for residential neighborhood speed limits. These take into account things like housing density, pedestrian usage, proximity to schools, and the actual physical design of the roads that developers chose to use (think, width, curve radius, visibility, crosswalks, etc.).
There are examples of people petitioning to lower speed limits in a given area, but for the most part, it's the city/state who decides, and it's usually a one-time rubber stamp decision based on an existing policy, because it's cheaper to pay someone to survey the neighborhood and check off policy boxes than it is to do an actual speed study for the road. Those policies are supposed to be set by traffic engineers, but legislators and law enforcement often ignore engineers' recommendations to give themselves the ability to generate revenue from speed traps.
The question of poorer neighborhoods and transportation equity is actually hella interesting, but there's way too much local variation and complexity to address it in a Reddit comment.
onlycodeposts@reddit (OP)
I think you did a fine job of addressing it.
There's always complexity when people think driving laws in their jurisdiction apply everywhere. Because of the way too much local variation.
That's why this sub is so interesting.