Lower Speeds, Traffic Calming To Improve Road Safety For All
BOSTON – Boston City Councilors Ed Flynn and Frank Baker will hold a hearing next week on Tuesday, November 13th at 10am with the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation to examine the merits of lowering the speed limit in the City of Boston to 20 MPH, unless otherwise posted. They will also look to discuss other traffic calming measures to improve road safety for all. The speed limit in the city was most recently lowered from 30 MPH to 25 MPH on January 9, 2017 as part of the city’s Vision Zero initiative, no serious or fatal crashes in Boston by 2030.
“In the final analysis, Councilor Baker and I look to have this conversation to ensure we are doing all we can to try to save lives and realize Vision Zero. We believe that infrastructure changes, like speed humps and raised crosswalks, are necessary for traffic calming; however, a combination of these physical changes to our built environment and a lower speed limit will improve public safety for all,” said Flynn. “Data from the city’s website and the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety indicated that the chances of a serious or fatal crash at 30 MPH is 50%, while at 20 MPH the chances significantly drop to 18%. We thank Mayor Walsh and his staff for their strong leadership on Vision Zero and efforts to make Boston safer for all.”
Councilor Baker said, “We were already successful in lowering the speed limit to 25 miles per hour on public ways subject to the control of the city. One of my top constituent complaints is the need for lower speed limits, more enforcement, and various traffic calming measures, like raised crosswalks, speed humps, narrowing traffic lanes, and bump-outs. As elected officials in the City of Boston, we need to help eliminate traffic fatalities on our city’s streets. Further lowering of the street speed limit is an important step in the right direction.”
For more information, please contact Councilor Flynn’s office at 617-635-3203 & [email protected], or Councilor Baker at 617-635-3455 & [email protected].
It’s been said a thousand times over…. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE POSTED LIMIT IS!
What matters is the degree to which and the way posted limits are enforced. 99% of people already drive over the posted limit, all this will do is ensure 100% of people drive over the posted limit.
Enforcement is what needs changing, not the limit itself.
Why don’t our representatives ever listen to us? It’s not a speed limit thing. People will still drive as fast as they want, no matter the posted speed limit signs. If we have stop signs on every corner up L street from Columbia through East First, that would slow down traffic. Same for Farragut. It would also give us pedestrians a chance to cross the street safely. It’s done on all of the other number and letter streets, so why can’t it be done on these main streets?
Scott..100% right.!..STOP SIGNS AT EVERY INTERSECTION OF “L” STREET just like EVERY STREET IN SOUTHIE ..this is a MUST!!..
Lower speed limits are terrific……but only if enforced. I never see any police on the streets doing speed checks with radar or any other technology. When asked at community meetings the BPD respond that they do as told and not enough manpower to assign someone to that post. I understand that but it should change for all our safety
As others have said, this seems like overkill and not something that will change behaviors appreciably. I’d like to see energies spent on improving how we all interact with one another on the roads. This includes cars, bikes, and peds. No one seems to give a shit about anyone or any rules, signs, signals, etc. Whatever.