What is the rationale behind speed limits? For example, why is there a small stretch of Abrams just north of Richmond that has what seems to be a random 30 miles per hour posting?
(Deputy Chief Jan Easterling decided the City of Dallas’ transportation department would be best suited to answer this question, so we spoke with Elizabeth Ramirez, assistant director of public works and transportation, who oversees the transportation operations division. Here’s what she had to say.) The first thing you would do is go out and measure speeds to see what the majority of the drivers feel comfortable driving at. But then you may be limited because of sight distance problems, or there may be curves, there may be a hill coming out of a side street, or maybe some properties developed so that you just can’t see around that house. So you wouldn’t want to set that speed limit too high because a driver wouldn’t have a chance to come out of their neighborhood because they would never see that car in time. In Lakewood, if you’re in the commercial area, typically there’s so much friction from people coming in and out of driveways and turning in and out of commercial properties, so you’ll typically see a 30 miles per hour limit in a commercial strip shopping area.
