Saratoga Springs is one step closer to lowering speed limits throughout the city.
Joining Albany and Schenectady, The Spa City might be the next Capital Region city to slash speed limits.
In March, Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll expressed interest in lowering the city’s limit to 25 miles per hour instead of the current 30.
“The simple answer is the speed limit reduction saves lives. If a pedestrian is hit at 23 miles per hour 10% of the people will die. Versus someone who is hit at 32 miles per hour 25% of the people will die. So, certainly it’s an increase of public safety,” said Coll.
The change would be implemented in the fall if it is approved this summer, in order to install new signs and implement the slower speed after the tourism season.
This year, city police reinstated a Traffic Safety Unit that had been disbanded in 2014. At Tuesday’s city council meeting, Coll said it will be vital to enforcing the new limit.
“I don’t want to over promise the community. We live in the fifth largest community in New York state. It’s very, very large and our Traffic Safety Unit, we only have three officers assigned to it. And they’re extremely busy – they’re focusing on school zones, and commercial traffic and they’re having very large impacts on doing that. We’re trying to leverage our police officers with the county in certain circumstances and that will be helpful as well,” said Coll.
A general reduction in the city’s speed limit would result in safer streets, even without additional tech like digital speed displays or speed cameras, according to Ed Lindner, Advocacy Chair for Bike-a-toga, a local non-profit that runs free bike repair clinics. He supports the creation of connected bike routes throughout the city.
“But even in the absence of seeing a cop on the corner with a radar gun, there’s a lot of evidence that just lowering the speed limits has a salutorious [sic] effect. I refer people to a study by the Insurance Institute on Highway Safety, it’s an industry group. They looked at the lowering of speed limits in the city of Boston in 2018. They looked at quiet city streets away from major intersections, away from school zones, streets that had no signage indicating what the speed limit was and they found that even on those streets the number of drivers exceeding 35 miles per hour dropped by nearly 30 percent,” said Lindner.
The city’s complete streets program was published in 2016 and yet has remained incomplete. Advocates like Lindner hope this is a sign the city will return to finish the proposed changes.
Katie Rocque has been organizing a so-called “bike bus” for local kids to get to school together on bikes.
“It’s interesting, we’ve had training and safety with the kids on how to ride safely. They follow the rules, we’re very proud of them. We’ve had drivers have altercations with the kid who are following the rules and trying to get to school in a safe, healthy way. I think Saratoga is at a very exciting point in its history. We have a huge influx of residents, we have tons of tourism, it’s becoming more and more popular each year. And I think it’s our duty as a community to meet them with safety and well-being,” said Rocque.
The changes would implement a 25 mile per hour speed limit on all roads in the city’s outside and inside tax districts with some exceptions like roads leading into the city, or some county routes.
A final public hearing on the proposed changes is planned for the August 19th city council meeting.
