Recommendations and Next Steps The successes of cities like Austin, Seattle, and New York City indicate the effectiveness of the tools they have used that are detailed in NACTO’s City Limits: default speed limits, slow zones, and corridor speed limits. For all three tools, the recommendations that City Limits makes for setting speed limits for improved safety are data-driven with the report citing studies that indicated safety benefits. The default speed limit by street category section of City Limits, combined with the precedent developed by the City of Austin, may provide the City of Fort Worth with a streamlined framework for determining speed limits by street category and context. For determining the speed limit for the specific context of major street corridors, City Limits details how to develop a Safe Speed Study to serve as support for the speed limit that is ultimately recommended (Chapter 3, Page 58). Both the SLS-Procedure and USLimits2 are automated tools that rely on a series of inputs by the user. Assuming the user has the required input data readily available, these tools can be used in a matter of minutes. The Safe Speed Study process that NACTO provides requires the user to manually progress through a series of steps that ultimately assess both conflict density and activity level. A matrix (Chapter 3, Page 63) then provides a speed limit recommendation based on these factors. A common theme among the case studies provided here is the use of data to gain the support of decision- makers as well as the community and stakeholders. After educating the appropriate parties on the recommended methods for determining safe speed limits through this report, Fort Worth should begin by prioritizing which of the three tools they would like to pursue. If City Council approval is necessary, Fort Worth could follow Austin’s example of proposing both default speed limits and corridor speed limits starting with the most highly ranked streets on the High Injury Network.
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