ENCINITAS — Lower speed limits will take effect on various roads throughout the city on July 1 under a new ordinance adopted by the Encinitas City Council.
The ordinance was adopted via a second reading on June 12 after being introduced and discussed by the City Council in late May. It adopts elements of Assembly Bill 43, which allows cities to lower speed limits on certain types of roads.
Over the past year, city leaders have been working to identify streets where lower speeds are most needed. They calculated areas with frequent collisions, those near schools and educational centers, and roads with high concentrations of bicycles and pedestrians.
Traffic calming and bicyclist safety measures have been a top priority in Encinitas over the past year after the community was shaken by the death of a 15-year-old who was killed while riding an e-bike last summer.
Several residential streets currently limited to 25 miles per hour will be lowered to 20 mph, and all roads with speed limits of 30 mph or higher will also be lowered by 5 mph.
The ordinance also allows a speed decrease of 5 mph along Safety Corridor streets or roadways where the highest number of collisions have occurred. Only 20% of the city’s roadways can be designated as Safety Corridors under the ordinance.
These include El Camino Real (currently varies from 35 to 55 mph), Encinitas Boulevard (40 to 50 mph), Leucadia Boulevard (30 to 50 mph), Manchester Avenue (40 to 45 mph), North and South Coast Highway 101 (30 to 35 mph), North Vulcan Ave (30 to 35 mph), Olivenhain Road (50 mph), Rancho Santa Fe Road (40 mph), San Elijo Ave (30 mph), Piraeus Street (45 mph), and Melba Road.
Other high-concentration roads with speed limits of 30 miles per hour or higher will also be reduced by 5 mph each.
These include La Costa Avenue (up to 55 mph), Quail Gardens Drive (35 mph), Garden View Road (40 mph), Via Cantebria (40 mph), Village Parkway (40 mph), Mountain Vista Drive (45 mph), South Rancho Santa Fe Road (40 mph), Lone Jack Road (40 mph), Saxony Road (30 to 45 mph), Villa Cardiff (35 mph), Via Molena (35 mph), Via Montoro (35 mph), El Camino Del Norte (40 mph), Birmingham Drive (30 mph), Lake Drive (35 mph), and Quail Hollow Drive.
Around 75 other residential roads designated as “local” will automatically have a speed limit of 20 mph. A full list can be found on pages 5 and 6 of the city’s staff report from Wednesday.
The city will post around 200 new signs stating the updated speed limits, costing around $60,000 in Traffic Safety and Calming project funds.
However, city officials pointed out that the challenge is getting drivers to actually follow the limits and emphasized the need for strong enforcement by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
“The key is to get people to actually drive the speed limits, so enforcement is one way, but I think that neighborhoods getting together and talking about the focused effort to slow down is important,” Mayor Tony Kranz said at the council’s May 22 meeting. “It’s just the way we go — it’s hustle and bustle, and people want to get where they’re going, and it’s going to require some culture change.”
In the first month that the new speed limits are active, drivers can only receive a warning for speeding unless they are going more than 10 mph over the limit. Come Aug. 1, all excessive speeds can be cited.
1 comment
To the Encinitas City Council: you don’t enforce the existing speed limits, what makes you think that lowering limits will make things safer? If you’re serious maybe you should consider hiring our own police department instead of contracting for part time coverage from the Sheriff’s Department. Hustle & bustle is just the natural result of too many rats in the maze. If it’s effecting cultural change you seek, move to a gated retirement community and join the HOA – you’ll fit right in.