One of the biggest surprises – and announcements – from Mayor Tom Henry’s State of the City address had little to do with city government at all.Fort Wayne neighborhoods can now require drivers to go slower when traveling their streets.
The Board of Public Works on Wednesday approved an amendment to the city’s street-calming policy to allow residents to petition to have neighborhood street speed limits lowered to 25 mph.
Gina Kostoff, board chairwoman, said the change will help people who feel traffic is unsafe in their neighborhood.
“We do get a lot of complaints about traffic going through very quickly,” she said.
Under state law, vehicles on any city street without a posted speed limit must follow a 30 mph limit. In Fort Wayne, most neighborhood streets have no speed limit signs, making 30 mph the default.
Councilwoman Karen Goldner, D-2nd, suggested lowering all neighborhood streets to 25 mph, but such a change would cost the city about $300,000 in new signs.
Shan Gunawardena, city traffic engineer, said state law allows the city to lower any speed limits to 25 mph without conducting a traffic study, which is why that new limit was selected.
Residents or neighborhoods who want to take advantage of the new policy must petition his office and obtain signatures from 75 percent of all property owners. For more information, call the city’s trafic engineering office at 427-1172.
Residents asking for the change would be responsible for paying for the signs, which Gunawardena estimated at $50 each. The city would install the signs.
Goldner said the new policy is a good compromise because it gives residents the opportunity to lower speeds and spares the city additional costs.
She said the petitions don’t have to come from an official neighborhood organization but can come from any resident.
The policy applies only to neighborhood streets, not residential areas on collector streets such as Fairfield or Vance avenues. Neighborhood streets are typically the last to get snow removal.
