Texas Transportation Code Section 545.356 grants municipalities the authority to alter prima facie speed limits. Specifically, it allows municipalities to declare speed limits as low as 25 miles per hour “if the governing body determines that the prima facie speed limit on the highway is unreasonable or unsafe.” Doing so requires the municipality to report the number of traffic citations, warnings, and crashes each year in comparison with the two prior years. Key takeaways: Texas Transportation Code grants authority to the City of Fort Worth to set speed limits as low as 25 miles per hour and does not require higher speed limits for collectors and arterials. However, the City needs to develop its own definition of “unreasonable or unsafe” to evaluate when the prima facie speed limits warrant a change. City of Fort Worth Speed Ordinance 22-86 The City of Fort Worth Ordinance 22-86 defers to the Texas Transportation Code regarding prima facie speed limits. It follows the Texas Transportation Code to assume a public street or highway within the city urban district without a speed limit sign would assume a speed limit of 30 mph. It specifies some parks where the speed limits are reduced to 20 mph, and school zones with speed limits mostly at 20 mph but some have 25 or 30 mph. A list of freeways, frontage roads, and streets with dedicated speed limits were also provided, though it is unclear about the rationale behind these specified speed limit values. Key takeaways: Since the current city ordinance follows largely the Texas Transportation Code for speed limit, it has to be revised to reflect any new speed methodology the City plans to adopt. FHWA Report to Congress on Guidance for the Setting of Speed Limits (2023) The FHWA report to Congress Guidance for the Setting of Speed Limits 2 synthesizes findings from National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 17-76, which explores methods for determining speed limits and their impact on road safety.
This report summarized six approaches used domestically and internationally to set speed limits:
1. Operating Speed : This approach uses the 85th percentile speed, with adjustments used to account for existing roadway geometry or crash experience. A review of 31 State
2 Federal Highway Administration. (2012). Guidance for the Setting of Speed Limits (Report to Congress). U.S. Department of Transportation. https:/ highways.dot.gov/sites/fhwa.dot.gov/files/Report_to_Congress%20on_Guidance_for_the_Setting_of_Speed_Limits_0.pdf
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