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Following a deadly year on the roads, Austin is considering lowering the speed limits on nearly 50 streets. KXAN reported that the City of Austin's Transportation Department is working to battle speeding, which is considered one of the contributing factors to all of the deadly crashes.
Some of the streets that are being considered for lower speed limits include Slaughter Lane, Great Hill Trail, Metric Boulevard, McNeil Drive, Cameron Road, Ranch-to-Market Road 620 near Four Points, and more.
The city's transportation department's assistant director Anna Martin explained, "We call them Level 3 or Level 4 streets so they're kind of big arterial, multi-lane roads."
Martin explained that the city isn't the same as it was when the speed limits were set. Martin said, "We had a lot fewer people living in the city, a lot fewer pedestrians and bicycle users also sharing our streets."
If the City of Austin approves the plans to lower the limits, there is a plan for how it will implement the changes. Martin said, "We're going to prioritize the roads that have school zones on them, and that are on our high injury network so we have a known pattern of crashes."
An example of a "high injury network" road is Cameron Road, which had had nine deadly crashes since 2018. Martin said, "We know that speed is a really important factor when it comes to our crashes and the severity of crashes increases with higher speeds. Lowering the limits overall so that it's safer for everybody."