SAN ANTONIO – Drivers on part of the Northwest Side could have to pump their brakes as the city considers a plan to downshift the default speed limit on city streets from 30 to 25 mph.
The city council’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted 5-0 Tuesday in support of moving forward with a pilot program to lower the speed limit in some still-undetermined portions of District 7, whose councilwoman, Marina Alderete Gavito, floated the idea of lowering the speed limits on neighborhood streets back in January.
“There’s that long-term solution of looking at it citywide. We know that that’s going to take a long time,” she told reporters after Tuesday’s meeting. “So we’re looking for a more immediate solution.”
It’s not clear how immediate even that smaller test run might be, though. An engineering study would have to be done before the speed limit could be changed, and there are also costs associated with signage and public notification.
City staff say there isn’t funding in the current FY 2026 budget, which runs through next September, but Alderete Gavito thinks “we can set something up.”
“The sooner, the better,” she said of when she hoped to actually begin the pilot program. “But I think we need to look through options.”
The “prima facie” speed limit is the default speed limit for city streets, unless otherwise posted. State law sets it at 30 mph, but the Texas Transportation Code allows cities to knock it down to 25 mph after an engineering and traffic investigation “if the governing body determines that the prima facie speed limit on the highway is unreasonable or unsafe.”
Such a change would only apply to “two-lane, undivided highways.”
Interim Public Works Director Juan Ayala told the committee they could base the pilot program on an area selected by Alderete Gavito, whose original request asked the city to prioritize changing speed limits on neighborhood streets within a quarter mile of parks, schools and community centers.
A pilot program would take a minimum of six months, Traffic Engineering Division Section Manager Lilly Banda told KSAT, and staff would take their direction from council on where to go from there.
Banda she wasn’t able to estimate how much a citywide engineering study would cost for a wider drop in the speed limit.
Ayala told council members the city had looked at lowering the speed limit in a previous pilot program, but the signs on their own “didn’t make much of a difference.”
“However, the difference will be made if you add … other traffic calming elements to the actual lowering of the speed,” he said.
Alderete Gavito said speeding is a top resident concern. One of the people she’s heard it from is Monticello Park Neighborhood Association President Bianca Maldonado, who told KSAT they have problems with speeding and distracted drivers.
Maldonado met with KSAT on a shaded block of Donaldson Avenue, outside a home where security cameras captured a dramatic crash in 2024 as a passing driver slammed into a parked car and partially rolled their vehicle before it bounced back onto its tires.
Security video from a home in Monticello Park captured a passing driver partially rolling over after hitting a parked car (KSAT)
“This isn’t the only problematic area,” she said. We’ve had T-bone accidents, throwing cars on their sides, where people are running stop signs because they’re speeding.”
She approves of possibly lowering the speed limit, telling KSAT, “I think anything that you can do to improve safety in neighborhoods is worth 5 mph.”
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