East Central Iowa News

Drivers will soon have to pump their brakes and slow down in Marshalltown after City Council members approved a proposal to reduce speed limits.

The final reading of the ordinance that enabled speed limit reductions along Lincoln Way took place during the March 27 council meeting.

"When we looked at the review this segment, we looked at the driveways coming out onto Lincoln Way," Heather Thomas, Marshalltown's director of Public Works, said during the meeting. "Ninety-five percent of them have the ability to pull out head first on the Lincoln way. Only 5% had internal where they would likely back out onto Lincoln Way, and all 5% of those between Highland Acres Road and Brentwood Road have the ability on their property to make changes so they can pull out head first. State requires this type of environment to be 45 mile an hour. That's the standard. And then you reduce it from there. We looked at the reductions and we are recommending a reduction to 40 miles an hour because we don't want to change more than ten miles an hour at a time."

Under the ordinance, the speed limit would be reduced from 55 mph to 45 mph from the western city limits up to Highland Acres Road. From that point to approximately 200 feet west of Ann Rutledge Road, the speed limit would be reduced by five miles per hour to 40 mph. From there, the speed limit will be reduced to 30 mph up to Ninth Street.

There were two major reasons to lower the speed limit. The first centered around the curve at Brentwood Road, which is only designed for speeds up to 35 mph. Standards are to post the limit five miles under that. Officials also looked at minor arterial street data in the city and found that this street had the highest crash rate per foot of road for any minor arterial—nonhighway or intersection—in the entire city. The goal is to lower the high accident rate.

There was some input from the public that felt the reduction to 30 mph was unfair and only taking place because of a few speeders and not the majority.

City leaders hoped to have new street and speed limit signs installed so that enforcement could start by April 7. The police department would utilize a 30-day warning period for the new speed limit changes, not giving tickets right away to allow residents and drivers time to adjust to the new expectations.

Council members felt good about the proposed changes because the street is a fairly major roadway used on a daily basis.