{"id":185216,"date":"2026-02-19T22:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T22:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/185216\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T22:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T22:52:09","slug":"speed-limits-on-20-of-san-diegos-roads-should-be-reduced-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/185216\/","title":{"rendered":"Speed limits on 20% of San Diego’s roads should be reduced, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Landis<\/a>A rendering of the bike lanes planned on Landis Street between North Park and City Heights. (File image courtesy SANDAG)<\/p>\n

The city of San Diego released its Comprehensive Speed Management Plan on Thursday, which is a city strategy to reduce vehicle speeds in order to meet its \u201cVision Zero\u201d goal to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries.<\/p>\n

The plan, which was heard in Thursday\u2019s Active Transportation and Infrastructure Committee<\/a>, uses a \u201cdata-driven, city-wide approach to lower speed limits across San Diego\u2019s neighborhoods, commercial corridors, and school zones,\u201d according to a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery San Diegan deserves to feel safe walking, biking or driving in their community,\u201d said Councilman and Committee Chair Stephen Whitburn. \u201cThis plan provides a clear roadmap to reduce dangerous speeds, protect lives, and build streets that work for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded San Diego $680,000 through the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program, intended to bolster Vision Zero efforts to reducing crashes through safer street design, slower speeds, equitable access improvements, and community engagement. One of the initiatives funded was the Comprehensive Speed Management Plan.<\/p>\n

The city maintains 3,185 centerline miles \u2014 the length of a road sans extra lanes \u2014 of public streets, with another 842 under the purview of the city\u2019s engineering and traffic survey network<\/p>\n

State law mandates speed limits posted above 25 mph require an engineering and traffic survey, which entails measuring the 85th percentile speed \u2014 essentially the speed most motorists are already traveling. But that process doesn\u2019t account for streets with higher safety risks such as school zones, areas with heavy bicyclist and pedestrian traffic and commercial zones, officials said.<\/p>\n

Several new laws passed in Sacramento give cities greater flexibility to determine appropriate speeds rather than defaulting to 25 mph. Corridors with higher comparative fatal or serious injury crashes can see 5 mph reductions, as can areas with high pedestrian and bicyclist activity. <\/p>\n

Business districts can be reduced to 25 or 20 mph and school zones can reduce speeds to 15 mph or 20 mph within 500 feet of schools, and 25 mph between 501 and 1,000 feet on qualifying nearby approach streets.<\/p>\n

With these new permissions from the state, the city found more than 20% of its roads \u2014 679.1 miles \u2014 are candidates for slower speeds.<\/p>\n

These include:<\/p>\n

189.6 centerline miles eligible as crash-heavy safety corridors;<\/p>\n

32.6 centerline miles eligible as high a pedestrian and bicyclist activity corridors;<\/p>\n

58.7 centerline miles eligible as business activity districts;<\/p>\n

371.1 centerline miles eligible for school zone speeds (15 or 20 mph); and<\/p>\n

27.1 centerline miles eligible for school approach speeds (25 mph).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Comprehensive Speed Management Plan represents a significant step in aligning San Diego\u2019s speed limits with Vision Zero safety priorities,\u201d said Transportation Department Interim Assistant Director Margaret McCormick, \u201cThe city has a clear and consistent framework to reduce speeds where they will make the most safety impact for all road users.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simply lowering speeds will not solve all of the city\u2019s problems, however. Reduced speeds need to be paired with \u201ccontinued traffic calming improvements, intersection safety enhancements, street design changes, education and public outreach, and traffic enforcement,\u201d to reach Vision Zero, the city statement reads.<\/p>\n

The plan could go into effect next fiscal year, depending on funding through the city\u2019s annual budget process.<\/p>\n

The Comprehensive Speed Management Plan can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rendering of the bike lanes planned on Landis Street between North Park and City Heights. (File image…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[87373,9881,74,76,75,87374],"class_list":{"0":"post-185216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-bicycle-lanes","9":"tag-road-safety","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-speed-limits"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}