Bellevue Council Approves Reduced Speed Limits in Search of Safety Gains
The Bellevue City Council gave the green light Tuesday to enact speed limit reductions across a wide swath of the city's arterial road network. The "Safe Speeds Bellevue" program comes in the wake of an uptick in fatal and serious injury crashes on Bellevue's streets, with lower posted limits just one tool being deployed in an attempt to stem the tide.
Out of all of the streets in Bellevue with posted speed limits of 30 mph or higher, 84% will see those limits reduced under this proposal, with the vast majority going from from 30 to 25 mph.
Several corridors on Bellevue's "high-injury network" – like Bel-Red Road and NE 20th Street – will drop from 35 to 25 mph. A number of streets around Downtown Bellevue Park are going all the way down to 20 mph.
Several major corridors in Bellevue including Coal Creek Parkway, Lakemont Boulevard, and the Lake Hills Connector – all streets with few legal pedestrian crossings – will remain high-speed with 35 mph limits.
https://www.theurbanist.org/bellevue-council-approves-reduced-speed-limits/