23 July 2023
Ramsey County is reducing vehicular speed limits on 34 miles of county roads that have on-street bike lanes.
The move, approved Tuesday by a unanimous Board of Commissioners, is meant to slow auto speeds on 36 segments, representing 12 percent of all county roads. St. Paul Public Works and county traffic engineers have been studying the issue since at least April 2022.
“The goals were to promote more uniformity and consistency of speed limits along corridors and increase the safety and level of comfort of those people walking, rolling or biking,” said Rose Lindsay, a spokeswoman for Ramsey County.
Speed limits on most segments will be reduced by 5 mph. Posted speeds on a stretch of Larpenteur Avenue between Dale and Rice streets will be reduced by 10 mph because of frequent crashes in that area.
County traffic engineers said they followed a general formula that bases speed limits on the 50th percentile speed for that roadway — the top speed reached by half the drivers on that segment. If half of all drivers exceeded the posted speed limit, the county reduced that limit by 5 mph.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation tends to post limits at the 85th percentile speed.
By state statute, the minimum speed limit on road segments with properly marked bike lanes is 25 mph.
Cities have legislative authority to establish their own speed limits on local roads. But counties, given their reliance on state aid for road funding, have that power only on roads with bike lanes. County traffic engineers have asked the Minnesota Department of Transportation to study the feasibility of reducing speed limits on additional road segments, such as McKnight Road from Carver Avenue to County Road C and New Brighton Road from County Road E to County Road E2.
The county also will look at adding or expanding bike lanes in road projects where four vehicular travel lanes are being reduced to three, or where roads are being reconstructed or road shoulders could be converted; commissioners also might empower the county manager to implement speed limit changes without further board approval.
Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt said cities like St. Paul have led the way in reducing their speed limits, setting the stage for counties to ask the state for similar permissions.
“There were times if you asked for a speed study, it could come back and say, ‘No, (the speed limit) should be higher,’ and you were kind of stuck with that,” Reinhardt said. “Whatever the state said is what you would do. A lot of people don’t understand when it comes to county roads, ‘Why can’t you just do this?’ It’s because by law, we can’t.”
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