The City of San Diego has started lowering speed limits on hundreds of miles of neighborhood streets as part of its first speed management plan.

San Ysidro and Otay Mesa would see the first reductions in school zones -- but work will continue throughout the city in coming weeks.

Transportation crews began replacing speed limit signs in San Ysidro on Friday along Calle Primera and Willow Road. The speed limit was reduced from 25 mph to 20 mph around a curve and to 15 mph when driving past Willow Elementary while children are in school.

"Every San Diegan deserves to get home safely, whether they're walking, biking, taking transit, or driving," San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said. "Our first-ever Comprehensive Speed Management Plan is a smart, data-driven approach to improving traffic safety. Along with investments in safer street design and other improvements, this plan will help prevent crashes, save lives, and make it safer for everyone to travel through our neighborhoods."

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 didn'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 gave cities greater flexibility to determine appropriate speeds rather than defaulting to 25 mph. Corridors with higher comparative fatal or serious injury crashes as well as areas with high pedestrian and bicyclist activity can see 5 mph reductions. Business districts can be reduced to 25 or 20 mph. School zones can reduce speeds to 15 mph or 20 mph within 500 feet of a campus and 25 mph between 501 and 1,000 feet on qualifying approach streets, according to the city statement.

With these new permissions from the state, the city found that more than 20% of its roads -- 679.1 miles -- are candidates for slower speeds.

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