Lower speed limit on city streets faces uphill climb
HOUSTON — Slowing down local streets in Texas’ biggest cities has momentum — but not a smooth route — as lawmakers take up a bill in Austin that advocates say will save lives.
House Bill 442, proposed by State Rep. Celia Israel, D-austin, would drop the prima facie speed — the base speed limit on most neighborhood streets — from 30 mph to 25 mph in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Austin. Other cities could follow suit if they wished, Israel said.
“A five-mile reduction in speed can mean the difference in life or death,” she told members of the Texas House Transportation Committee this week.
The lower base speed would be applied only in the major cities or others that approve it, and only along streets not considered part of the state highway system where state or local officials have set a different limit.
“This is about residential streets only where there is nothing posted,” Israel said.
Large cities, notably Houston and Dallas, have sought the change for about a decade, citing the need to lower speeds on their neighborhood streets. Texas’ 30 mph default speed limit is fine for more rural areas, officials argue, but not for dense streets in cities.
Safety benefits increase as speeds decline, especially for pedestrians, decades of research shows. A pedestrian struck by a driver in a vehicle traveling 23 mph has a 25 percent of chance of severe injury, according to a 2011 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. With an increase to 31 mph, just above the current prima facie limit, the likelihood of serious injury or death leaps to 50 percent.
That difference in speed can
have horrible consequences, Louisa Peterzen said. Her son Victor, 10, was killed riding his bike in the Spring Branch area of Houston last September.
“Our streets should be safe,” she told lawmakers, detailing the pain and frustration Victor’s death caused.
To enact their own lower speed limits, cities would have to spend millions of dollars posting 25 mph signs and studying the need to reduce speeds.
Giving them the ability to make 25 mph the default simplifies the issue, supporters say.
“This is an easy one,” said Jay Crossley, executive director of the nonprofit Farm & City and active with Central Texas Families for Safe Streets, an Austin-based safety organization.
Skeptics, however, worry that the state slowing street speeds in cities could have unintended consequences.
“Anything that slows down Texas traffic even more … just doesn’t make sense to us,” said Terri Hall, executive director of the libertarian-leaning Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. “We have got to facilitate the smoother flow of traffic.”
Others questioned whether by setting different street speeds in cities at the state level, Texas lawmakers would be opening the door to further control from the Capitol of traffic laws and community speeds better set by cities and counties.
“If there are issues at the local level, they should be handled in the local level,” San Antonio area toll road critic Don Dixon said.
This is the third session Israel has sought the change. Two years ago, the bill made it out of the House Transportation Committee but failed to receive a vote on the floor. She has revised the specifics of the bill to mirror language proposed by state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-lardeo, in SB 221. Zaffirini’s bill is awaiting a hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee.
Both bills come as Texas faces a road safety crisis. Despite a drop in traffic as workers stayed home during the COVID-19 crisis, Texas streets proved far more dangerous last year. Already dealing with an ongoing safety problem along state roads, for which officials dedicated $600 million over the past two years, TXDOT data shows 2020 was a horrendous year on highways and streets.
The 3,929 fatalities, which could increase slightly as late reports come in, was the highest number recorded since 1984, the year before the state required seat belt use for all front-seat passengers and when modern drunk driving education efforts were in their infancy and Texas had 13 million fewer residents.
That more drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists died on Texas roads last year was remarkable because of the steep drop in traffic for many months of the year, safety experts said.
The cause, safety researchers and transportation officials said, was the combination of open roads and drivers using them to increase their speeds. For months, officials have urged people to take care with clear streets.
“Everyone is empowered to slow down,” state Transportation Commissioner Laura Ryan said during an October event marking the 20th anniversary of the last death-free day along Texas roads.
Advocates said avoiding deaths, and meeting a state goal of cutting the number of fatalities in half by 2035, would be helped if Texas let cities lead the way with slower streets.
“Texas leads the nation in traffic deaths,” Crossley said. “We can lead the nation in ending traffic deaths.”