Big cars with bumpers 40 inches in the air, drivers who text, inebriation, and speeders have all contributed to an increase in pedestrian deaths nationwide, speakers told the Goleta City Council as it prepared an ordinance to reduce speeds along most of the city’s major roads by 5-10 miles per hour. New signs with new speed limits will be going up in January. The ordinance went into effect in October, and Goleta police will be giving warnings for the first 30 days they’re up and citations after that.
Mayor Paula Perotte, who has long championed safe routes to schools, said she had to hold back her excitement as the council voted for the measure: “Traffic surveys, they’ve always made me cringe, because it usually meant the speed would go up.”
A traffic survey of actual road speeds used to be how posted speeds were determined. A new state law — Assembly Bill 43 — uses those surveys but changed the way speeds can be determined. Speeds can now be rounded down by 5-10mph depending on criteria like high rates of accidents or proximity to schools or businesses.
