City officials came to Canyon Palms on April 8 to celebrate the reduction of speed limits on 36 street segments in Palm Springs.
Mayor Lisa Middleton and State Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, the author of Assembly Bill AB43, explained that the new state law gave cities the authority to reduce speed limits to prevent traffic and pedestrian fatalities and injuries.
They unveiled a new speed limit sign near the corner of La Verne Way and Toledo Avenue. Also attending were the city manager, police and fire chiefs, and officials of ONE-PS and Canyon Palms, which had both made the speed limit reductions a priority. In 2021, Palm Springs had 1,500 traffic collisions resulting in 450 injuries and 16 deaths. That fatality rate was disproportionate to the city’s population and up from an average of nine killed each year since 2013.
In our neighborhood, Toledo Avenue’s speed limit has been reduced from 45 to 40. The higher limit was a result of state law formerly basing limits on traffic engineers determining the speed at which 85 percent of cars travel on a roadway. So roads that speeding made more dangerous automatically got higher speed limits, increasing the risk of fatalities.
