San Diego on Thursday released its Comprehensive Speed Management Plan, a city strategy to reduce vehicle speeds in order to meet its "Vision Zero" goal to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries.
The plan, heard in Thursday's Active Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, uses a "data-driven, city-wide approach to lower speed limits across San Diego's neighborhoods, commercial corridors, and school zones," according to a city statement.
"Every San Diegan deserves to feel safe walking, biking or driving in their community," said Councilman and Committee Chair Stephen Whitburn. "This plan provides a clear roadmap to reduce dangerous speeds, protect lives, and build streets that work for everyone."
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded San Diego $680,000 through the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program, intended to bolster Vision Zero efforts to reducing crashes through safer street design, slower speeds, equitable access improvements, and community engagement. One of the initiatives funded was the Comprehensive Speed Management Plan.
The city maintains 3,185 centerline miles -- the length of a road sans extra lanes -- of public streets, with another 842 under the purview of the city's engineering and traffic survey network
State law mandates speed limits posted above 25 mph require an engineering and traffic survey, which entails measuring the 85th percentile speed -- essentially the speed most motorists are already traveling. But that process doesn't account for streets with higher safety risks such as school zones, areas with heavy bicyclist and pedestrian traffic and commercial zones, officials said.
Several new laws passed in Sacramento give cities greater flexibility to determine appropriate speeds rather than defaulting to 25 mph. Corridors with higher comparative fatal or serious injury crashes can see 5 mph reductions, as can areas with high pedestrian and bicyclist activity. Business districts can be reduced to 25 or 20 mph and school zones can reduce speeds to 15 mph or 20 mph within 500 feet of schools, and 25 mph between 501 and 1,000 feet on qualifying nearby approach streets, the city statement read.