The City of Bellevue has released a plan to reduce the speed limits on nearly every city street where limits are currently higher than 25. Most streets would see their limits dropped by 5 mph though a couple, including NE Bellevue-Redmond Road and NE 20th Street, would drop 10 mph from 35 to 25 while 148th Ave NE would drop from 40 to 30. The entire downtown grid would be reduced to 25.
The plan joins an existing measure already passed and ready to go into effect this year that will lower nearly all non-arterial residential street speed limits in the city to 20 mph. The city also piloted speed reductions on sections of four arterial streets starting last summer, and those results are informing the larger speed reduction plan.
You can learn more on the city’s project page and from this interactive map of the proposed speed limit changes. An online survey is open until March 30. The Bellevue City Council is set to discuss the plan this summer.
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While the plan is bold in places, such as setting a 25 mph speed limit for Bel-Red Road, the effect of these changes will be limited without also changing the designs of the streets. A street with too many lanes that are too wide encourages faster driving regardless of the number on a sign. Hopefully the Council’s new membership will reconsider some of the body’s previous resistance to safe roadway designs on roads like Bel-Red.
It’s also not clear why some street segments would keep their 35 mph speed limits, such as Coal Creek Parkway, a bike route with painted bike lanes and traffic that is far too fast.