“There is something magic about 20 mph… We can substantially reduce the likelihood of fatalities in our streets by having this important piece of legislation in place.”
— Tom Miller, PBOT Director
House Bill 3150 (PDF), which would give municipalities across Oregon the authority to reduce speeds on some residential streets to 20 mph, was the subject of a public hearing last Friday. The bill is a companion* to Senate Bill 344 and the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation has made it one of their top legislative priorities for the 2011 session.
[*HB 3150 differs slightly from SB 344 in that it not only addresses the speed limit issue, but it also seeks to official define the term “neighborhood greenways” in Oregon law.]
At a hearing of the House Transportation and Economic Development Committee on Friday, HB 3150’s chief sponsor, Representative Ben Cannon, introduced the bill by saying lower speeds would, “… reinforce and improve the experience for those using a neighborhood greenway.” Testifying in favor of the bill were newly appointed Director of PBOT Tom Miller and Portland City Traffic Engineer Rob Burchfield.
Co-Chair of the House committee.
(Photo © J. Maus)
“Why 30 mph or 25 mph down to 20 mph?,” Miller said in his testimony, “There is something magic about 20 mph.” Miller told committee members that FHWA studies show a person walking has a 40% chance of being killed when struck by a motor vehicle at 30 mph; but that same person has just a 5% of being killed when the car is going 20 mph. “We can substantially reduce the likelihood of fatalities in our streets by having this important piece of legislation in place,” Miller said. He was also sure to point out that there is no financial cost to this bill: “We have an opportunity today to save lives on our streets without any cost whatsoever to taxpayers*.”
[*This was in reference to State of Oregon taxpayers. New speed limit signs would come out of city funds, at a cost that Burchfield says is about $75 in labor per sign.]
If HB 3150 were to become law, any Oregon city would be able to set a 20 mph speed limit if a road met the following criteria:
- The street must have 2,000 or fewer motor vehicle trips per day and of those, 85% or fewer must already be traveling at 30 mph or less.
- The street must also already have some type of signage, markings, or infrastructure that indicate the presence of people walking and biking.
If those criteria are met, city crews wouldn’t be able to just go out and start putting up new speed limit signs. As written, the law would require city transportation departments to share with City Council the specific streets they want to apply the new speed limits to. The council would then adopt an ordinance giving the green light to the changes.
Note that the 2,000 or fewer vehicle trips limit is the same standard already in use by PBOT in identifying their growing network of neighborhood greenway streets.
Burchfield, speaking to the committee on Friday, said this law would be a cheap way to save lives. “We know that the risk of injury goes up dramatically as speeds go up. This is just one tool, but it’s a cost-effective tool.”
The eight member committee didn’t seem to have any major objections to the bill, but no vote was taken. They’ve scheduled another work session on the bill today and a vote is likely. If your representative is on the committee, please consider dropping them an email or phone call to voice your opinion on this proposed legislation (the Co-Chair of the committee is Beaverton rep Tobias Read).
Stay tuned for more updates and browse past legislative session coverage here.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
Miller and Burchfield think that a 20mph speed limit means motorists will actually go 20mph and below?! Wow. You have to wonder about the competency of someone this uninformed about what motorists actually do on residential streets.
if you don’t set the lower limit you get zero compliance.
Agreed. Designing for lower speed limits is critical, but putting them into law is still an important first step.
you can’t win if you don’t play…
Another factor here is that if the road is currently 30mph, and traffic goes 40, that’s a speeding ticket. If the limit is 20, and traffic goes 40, that’s a reckless driving ticket.
Matt – any data available out there as to how many speeding tickets were issued by portland police? that is to say, if your argument is based on effective control of speeding via punishment – there would have to have punishment demonstrated a prori, right?
Often overlooked in such discussion is that if a car is traveling slower, it is far more likely that the driver AND the pedestrian or bicyclist will be able to avoid any collision, thereby not appearing in the statistics. So the link between speed and death is much greater. Don’t simply look at the ratio of 40% to 5%.
Ben Cannon is doing a great thing in getting this moving forward. It may not pass this session, but I hope it does. If it takes 3 years, then this is the foundation.
US. Rep. John Conyers just spoke in Portland about how it took hard work and vision to propose civil rights laws he knew would get shot down a few times.
The bike community needs to remember the real friends of bikes and transportation in Salem: Cannon, Dingfelder and Dembrow. They are not fair weather friends to active transportation like bikes, bus and rail.
He was also sure to point out that there is no financial cost to this bill: “We have an opportunity today to save lives on our streets without any cost whatsoever to taxpayers.”
How will the new signs be procured and installed?
possibly he was referring to the fact that the bill would not have a _state_ fiscal note, which is a critical consideration in the current session
are is right.
Obviously the signs will cost money. Burchfield said about $75 in labor/install costs each.
The vehicle trip limit seems ridiculous. Only minor narrow back roads where cars tend not to speed much anyway will get addressed I would think. The real qualifiers should have to do with stats: injuries, recklessness, complaints, bike/ped activity, etc.
Less than 2000 trips a day means less than about about 1 car per minute, meaning a road that is barely used. I guess it could apply to bike blvds, but then if car traffic increases, the limit can be revoked. Maybe a step forward, but not a very big one with such a limitation.
A better one would a safe road sharing law where if peds or bikes were around/in/near the street, you’d have to slow to 15mph while they were in your “buffer zone”, 20 yards or so perhaps. Especially important to support kid friendly streets, not to mention bikes and peds.
you’re right…the criteria for reducing speed limits is lacking.
“… If HB 3150 were to become law, any Oregon city would be able to set a 20 mph speed limit if a road met the following criteria:
* The street must have 2,000 or fewer motor vehicle trips per day and of those, 85% of fewer must already be traveling at 30 mph or less.
* The street must also already have some type of signage, markings, or infrastructure that indicate the presence of people walking and biking. …” reported by maus/bikeportland
I can’t figure out what the rationale is here. If the motor vehicles are using a given street over 2,000 trips per day and are traveling 30mph or more, according to this laws proposal, ‘Don’t bother to try slow them down.’? That makes little sense.
General safety, eliminating injury and fatalities is a valid objective with a law from a bill like this one, but so is community livability. The people working on this bill would serve the public by being a bit less timid, by emphasizing community livability is an important benefit to be achieved by this bill.
pfarthing6,
You’re right that this will only apply to small, n’hood streets where there isn’t much traffic to begin with. I’ve added a bit to the story and have pointed out that this is the same criteria already in use for PBOT n’hood greenways.
Also, the lawmakers and PBOT know this bill won’t have a massive impact right away… The larger idea here is to set a precedent of giving locals more control over speed limits.
As a Father of 3 girls under 7 years old this bill seems like a no brainer. Often times our entirely family is enjoying our local neighborhood greenway and lower speeds would make a difference. If we can move in the direction of making neighborhood streets safer the better off we will all be. At our neighborhood school we actively encourage biking and walking. Probably 75% of the kids coming to school are on a Greenway for at least part of their commute.
I sincerely hope the legislature sees in the wisdom in lowering the speed to 20mph on neighborhood streets.
I love you Tom Miller!
Anybody have info about how and who to contact here with letters of support? Who makes the decisions on this bill here???
The first – most important – people to write or call are your own state Representatives and Senators. Having just a few people contact them about a bill like this is noted (make sure to mention the bill number). And mention you’re a constituent of theirs – if you want to make sure you’re heard!
Go to http://www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/ to find out who your legislators are.
Second, contact the committee members who are on the bill. In the House, here’s the list:
Rep. Cliff Bentz
Rep. Tobias Read
Rep. Terry Beyer
Rep. Patrick Sheehan
Rep. Shawn Lindsay
Rep. Nancy Nathanson
Rep. Jefferson Smith
Rep. Jim Weidner
To e-mail, it’s pretty much rep.firstlast@state.or.us, for example rep.tobiasread@state.or.us.
So email away, mention the bill number, be respectful.
“…[*HB 3150 differs slightly from SB 344 in that it not only addresses the speed limit issue, but it also seeks to official define the term “neighborhood greenways” in Oregon law.]…” maus/bikeportland
Neither the word ‘greenway’, or the phrase “neighborhood greenways”, exists in the text for either House Bill 3150 or Senate Bill 344. No definition, let alone an official definition by anyone associated with either of the two bills of that word or phrase is provided in this bikeportland story.
So what might that word and phrase mean? I’ll have to admit, I can be lazy at times, but figure I have little excuse not to use the free, downloadable dictionary WordWeb, to get at least one simple, easy, possible answer to questions like this one:
WordWeb definition for ‘greenway’: ” 1a) A belt of parks or rural land surrounding a town or city”.
In the context of this proposed law, are people assuming, partly because of casual usage of the word ‘greenway’ and ‘neighborhood greenways’, by Representative Ben Cannon, and others, that those words are referring to the network of neighborhood streets as ‘greenways’?
wsbob,
HB 3150 has been amended and it does include “neighborhood greenway”. The term was created by PBOT and it is a new type of roadway. Like those who were at our NoPo Get Together heard from PBOT’s Greg Raisman… the idea is to create a trail-like experience on n’hood streets. It’s about trees, bioswales, and comfortable places to bike and walk.
Perhaps you’re explaining that the reason the text in the version of HB 3150 which you’ve provided a link to above, in your story, does not include the phrase “neighborhood greenway”, is because it’s not the amended version. Maybe I missed it, but did look very closely, even using the ‘find’ function to search the text of the bills.
Hoping that neighborhood streets can be re-created in the form of a “…trail-like experience…” seems quite a stretch. At the least though, allowing cities more autonomy in determining the need for bringing speed limits down could help cities restore opportunities for quiet, peaceful walks or rides that routes between neighborhoods to nearby stores and services have lost to motor vehicles so often.
wsbob,
Here’s the amended version of the bill in PDF form –
http://www.leg.state.or.us/committees/exhib2web/2011reg/HTED/02-25-2011meetingmaterial/hb3150-1amend.pdf
Maus…thanks for posting the amended version and for making sure the link in the story leads the amended version of HB 3150
So that people don’t have to go to the pdf to see how the phrase is used on pg 6 of the bill, here is the relevant section:
“…“(10)(a) A road authority may establish by ordinance a designated
speed for a neighborhood greenway under the jurisdiction of the road
authority that is five miles per hour lower than the statutory speed.
“(b) The road authority shall post a sign giving notice of the designated
speed at each end of the portion of the neighborhood greenway
where the designated speed is imposed and at such other places on the
neighborhood greenway as may be necessary to inform the public. The
designated speed shall be effective when signs giving notice of the
designated speed are posted.
“(c) As used in this subsection, ‘neighborhood greenway’ means a
highway in a residence district that:
“(A) As determined by the road authority having jurisdiction over
the highway, has an average volume of fewer than 2,000 motor vehicles
per day, more than 85 percent of which are traveling less than 30 miles
per hour; and
“(B) Has a traffic control device that indicates the presence of pedestrians
or bicyclists.”. HB 3150-1 2/18/11
Proposed Amendments to HB 3150 ”
Very interesting. The nature that the phrase, ‘neighborhood greenway’ would tend to convey, doesn’t seem to have much of a direct association with the more obvious characteristics of the type of usage/route it stands to be applied to. Seems mostly arbitrary and obtuse.
With the potential ‘officially’ designated use of the phrase, some of those folks out in places such as felony flats, whose fate is to live on potholed roads may be delighted to learn their streets are part of ‘Neighborhood Greeways’. A name more readily understandable could of been put into use, such as ‘Reduced Speed Route’. Not as pretty, I suppose.
‘The street must have 2,000 or fewer motor vehicle trips per day and of those, 85% or fewer must already be traveling at 30 mph or less.’
How can they claim safety is their #1 priority with a straight face? This requirement is clearly throughput over safety. “Sorry, too many people are speeding through your neighborhood to qualify..”
Agreed. That stipulation bugs me too.
One of the things that I hope will happen if we lower the speed limits on neighborhood greenways is that will just be one more thing discouraging people from using them for thru travel in motor vehicles. If you have the choice of a 20 mph street or one a block over that is 25 or 30 mph that is an incentive not to drive on these streets that we are trying to turn into bike arteries and it is a lot cheaper to put up some 75 dollar signs than it is to build a diverter, although I’d like to see more diverters installed on neighborhood greenways as well.
Maybe this is off-topic, and I know I am dreaming, but I would like to see this concept move beyond back-alleys and out-of the way, underused streets by creating the ability to establish different speed limits for individual lanes on multi-lane streets. Make the curb lanes 20 and the center lanes 35 or whatever. Then paint sharrows in the curb lane and create a truly shared space. Paint the speed limits on the pavement like they do in other parts of the world.
Can anybody tell me why in the heck they don’t just make it a new statutory speed rather than putting it under the designated speed language?
That seems to confuse the speed zoning issue. Designated speeds require a full speed zone investigation. This thing only requires a speed check to make sure 85% of vehicles are going at less than 30 mph to qualify.
While I appreciate Miller’s advocacy and all the efforts everyone involved is putting into getting these bills passed, I wish Miller had used words other than “There’s something magic about 20mph…”. Yes, I realize he’s speaking metaphorically, but really, there’s nothing “magic” about physics. We need people who operate motorized vehicles to understand that there is a legitimate rationale behind efforts to get them to slow down where it is necessary for public safety. Calling it “magic” undermines that message, it makes it too easy for people to default to thinking this is just some arbitrary figure pulled out of the ether by those crazy bike-loving bureaucrats.
I’d so much rather something like, “There’s firm and clear scientific validity behind 20mph…”.
What there is NOT is firm and clear scientific validity that setting a speed limit much lower than what the most people are driving will change their driving speeds much without constant, expensive enforcement (which will cause the cops and the politicians who support it a lot of grief/disrespect/disrepute).
“…that setting a speed limit much lower than…” Plutodog
The bill, if approved, will allow for only a 5mph…(just 5mph…which to me doesn’t seem like enough latitude for reduction.)… ,reduction in the statutory speed limit to a given street that a transportation authority wishes to apply the law to.
“What there is NOT is firm and clear scientific validity that setting a speed limit much lower than what the most people are driving will change their driving speeds much without constant, expensive enforcement …” Plutodog
Having established that by this law, speed limits will not be set ‘much’ lower than what most people are driving, but rather…only by 5mph, the next question is whether people will actually pay attention to the signs posted informing them the statutory speed limit for a given area has been reduced by 5mph, and actually slow down. without a lot of regular police enforcement.
Knowledge and social consciousness, rather than enforcement and fines, represents most of what keeps common usage of streets, roads, highways, etc, manageable and tolerable to people that have to live next to them. If people are enabled to understand (for reasons other than citations and fines.) why they’re being asked to slow their speed down additionally from the statutory speed for a given area, I think they will slow down.
How well people in general understand what the point of House Bill 3150 is, and why people are trying to make it happen, is something important to consider. I personally think people in many neighborhoods are increasingly aware that speeds allowed through their neighborhoods are withering the livability of many neighborhoods located near to certain types of traffic situations.
And also, that this particular awareness isn’t an isolated one, limited to one or two neighborhoods here and there. Excessive allowed speeds in neighborhoods have become a common problem which people are becoming commonly aware of. This awareness is probably the most important thing that through more slowly traveled speeds, will help to bring livability back to people’s neighborhoods.
Drivers are slow enough in Portland already. Maybe cyclists need to speed it up or get the F out of the road and stay in bike lanes.
Wow. You sound pretty angry, there. It is interesting that you say “Drivers are slow enough…already”, and then turn around and appear to blame this slowness on cyclists. Maybe if drivers want to drive fast, they should stick the “F” to the freeways? Are the freeways not fast enough? I’ll guarantee you it’s not cyclists slowing you down there. Sounds like your anger is misplaced. It also sounds like you value speed over safety. Is your ability to arrive somewhere 1 minute sooner worth someone else’s life? What, do you make $1.29 Million per minute?
if people are still getting killed, drivers are not slow enough
Note that it’s not just 5 MPH lower than the 85th percentile. It’s up to 10 mph lower than that and arbitrary, giving no weight to accident experience or what the drivers obviously think is a safe speed. Remember, they’re already exceeding the stat 25 by up to 5 mph. And this bill would cut this another 5 mph.
Meanwhile you want to believe, in the absence of evidence, that people will be educated, made to understand, brought to “social consciousness” that they need to go slower by 10 mph then their experience, vision and driving skills tell them is a safe speed because you put up a sign.
The odds are better that some kids are going to get run over, biker hurt because they had that kind of faith without proof and folks like you will take no credit for any such injury due to unjustified faith in a stupid sign and “social consciousness”.
Note it’s not always the other guy’s neighborhood that people speed up in. It’s often right there in their own. Drivers learn to believe their own eyes, not your sign unless it’s reasonable on it’s face and/or enforced constantly. That’s the fact backed by the data.
Laws that codify wishful thinking simply trivialize the law and make it harder to enforce more rational law.
Plutodog, you didn’t hit the ‘reply’ button, but it’s clear your responding to my 2, 2011 at 10:22 am comment.
It’s not what I ‘believe’ about road users moderating the speed they travel on some level according to social consciousness and responsibility: That’s just the way it ‘is’. If it wasn’t there’d literally have to be a cop sitting in the passenger seat next to the drivers of many, many cars on the road, making sure the drivers of said cars kept their speed down.
Many road users do set the speed their vehicles travel, out of consideration for other people, irrespective of the statutory speed limit or the sometimes commonly traveled speed in relation to that limit.
I get what you’re saying in your first paragraph about people exceeding the statutory speed limit by 5mph, theoretically making the optional reduction via a new law by this bill, a 10mph reduction. The fact is though, not everyone exceeds the posted speed limit; some travel the posted speed or slower, voluntarily, out of consideration for the people in the neighborhood through which they’re traveling, or for other reasons that have nothing to do with enforcement or fines. I think that most people have some awareness of the fact that some roads they travel, pass through places where other people live, and that they should moderate the presence of their vehicle accordingly.
The speed road users travel isn’t simply a reflection of what they individually feel they’re capable of safely traveling at; because obviously, some road users feel they could very safely travel 60mph on a road posted for 30mph. In many instances, the reason speed limits are set at speeds they are, is to attempt to keep places lsuch as neighborhoods from becoming Speedway Hell.
And it’s often not “…the other guy’s neighborhood that people speed up in. …”. It’s often a resident of the neighborhood itself, in which case, often neighborhood residents get busy and co-operate to note who it is, file reports and complaints and get some action towards correcting such situations.
Nope you’re right about the reply button, WSbob. But in fact the folks do take into consideration all the things you’re talking about when they choose what they believe is a safe speed. And when you aggregate all those individual choices, it’s the 85th percentile speed — that speed at or below which 85% of people who are traveling don’t exceed — that is the safe speed. It leaves room for 15% who don’t know better or who don’t care. That’s how designated speeds are set, basically, with adjustments for crash records, the neighborhood, ADT, geometry, etc.
Funny but you’re proving yourself untrusting of the wisdom of the majority of drivers whilst also claiming you trust them to have wisdom once we in our godly wisdom grant them another freakin’ sign. Think about that for a minute.
What you are arguing for is a statutory speed — a max speed under any circumstances because it’s a greenway (as you all call it). That’s not what the proposed law here is going for. It’s a bastard child, this law, and it will pee off as many people as it pleases. And likely not save any more crashes than it causes.
Plutodog: ‘Neighborhood Greenway’ is not my choice of term or phrase for streets that this bill would address; the people that wrote House Bill 3150 are responsible for including the questionable use of that term into the bill. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to try use that phrase in this bill. I don’t think I’ve even used that phrase to refer to streets this bill would address, because to me, the term doesn’t seem to much apply.
This bill is certainly about safety, but that’s only part of what the bill is about. The other part the bill is about, is ‘livability’. That’s part of what I’m saying in the earlier post: That the speed limit variance option posed by this bill is not simply one of safety, but of livability.
The reason people would support this bill, is because they’re sick and tired of people driving through their neighborhoods at speeds that may be considered safe by the motor vehicle operators, but which are resulting in motor vehicles undermining neighborhood livability through excessive noise, dirt, and stress.
You’re question about what you’re referring to as a ‘designated speed’, as opposed to new statutory speed, isn’t one I’m sure I well understand. Perhaps you’re thinking of avoiding red tape involved in reviewing a localities request for a variance from the statutory speed limit.
I wouldn’t know for certain why this wasn’t done rather than the variance approach. One possible reason is that the reduction amount in only 5mph. Another, is that for general purposes, the standing speed limits may be considered generally acceptable, and that this bill would allow localized adjustments, rather than creating entirely new speed limits.
There could be hope by the state that lower speed limits wouldn’t turn into standard practice across the county or state. I feel as though the state, on occasion, is inclined to do things that favor its idea of business and growth at the expense of degrading basic community livability. And that is a consequence that bills like this one attempt to counter.
And again, why make it a designated speed (which requires a full speed zone investigation under existing law here and nationally), rather than a new statutory speed for your “neighborhood greenway”?
Plutodog…I tried to answer your question…and I think I have. You don’t seem to feel my response answers your question, so I think it’s your turn to tell bikeportland readers why you think the bill should have been written for “…a new statutory speed…”, rather than a variance to existing statutory speeds for specific street situations.
@plutodog, the choice of 20mph is about the speed at which a collision with a car is unlikely to be deadly to a vulnerable user, not the “speed people feel like driving”. Greenways are actually a good name for it because the long view of the city is to use all kinds of engineering solutions, including the ones that also help reduce runoff to create streets where the speed limit matches the driver behavior, and both are safe for cyclists and pedestrians. The eventual goal is to create a network of near park like trails for safe bike and pedestrian travel. The concept is to create very safe streets with lower than average car traffic without disrupting auto arteries at all. The notion that because currently people are driving down neighborhood greenways at a speed that risks killing vulnerable users so we shouldn’t try to reduce the average speed on these streets is like someone in the 1970’s saying that while we know wearing seat belts reduces deaths in auto crashes we shouldn’t try to encourage their use because most people don’t want to wear them.
“…Greenways are actually a good name for it because the long view of the city …” Bjorn
If a law from this bill was to be limited to Portland streets subject to that city’s ideas about re-purposing certain of them with the specific types of ideas you’ve mentioned, use of the word, ‘Greenways’, could have been more useful to this bill.
This though, is a bill that could allow variances from statutory speed limits to be initiated by individual cities statewide for their own cities, regardless of whether or not their streets are set for the kind of eco-remodeling Portland has in mind for some of its streets.