Statutory speed limit changes

Recommendations from a speed limit study are en route to the governor’s office.

Sponsored by Rep. Peggy Scott (R-Andover) and Sen. Lisa Fobbe (DFL-Zimmerman), HF1421/SF1467* would make various modifications and clarifications to statutory speed limits.

Amended and approved 126-5 by the House May 5, the Senate concurred with the one-word change and repassed the bill 53-0 one day later.

“In 2007, the Legislature asked (the Department of Transportation) to form a task force with some city and county persons to look over kind of a void in statute that covers areas that used to be fairly rural, but now have been developed to the point where speed limits in those areas that used to be 55 mph are too fast,” Scott said.

The bill would change the speed limit to 35 mph along rural residential districts where the homes are spaced 300 feet or less along those roads, if adopted by the local road authority.

Scott said the bill has no state cost, and would have minimal costs to local units of government.

The bill also narrows the definition of a “residential roadway” and clarifies that an “urban district” can be on a city street or town road.