Politics & Government

WSDOT Explains Reason Behind SR 164 Speed Limit Reduction

A combination of crash history and a desire to post more uniform speeds spurred the department to lower the speed limit on State Route 164 from 55 mph to 50 mph last November.

In one of of last year, we mentioned we were trying to track down more information behind the Washington State Department of Transportation's decision to lower the speed limit on State Route 164 from 55 mph to 50 mph.

Department spokesperson Jamie Holter has been kind enough to respond to our repeated prodding as she tracked down some hard data to share with us, and this week, we were happy to hear from her with that information. In an email to us, she said:

There’s a stretch that 7 miles long. It’s bookended by cities that are 45 miles per hour. On the west end there are schools and speeds are generally slower, on the east end (east of 392nd Street) it’s a little bit faster.

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We don’t like have a section of road that goes 45, 50, 55, 45 because it’s confusing to drivers and leads to inconsistent speeds.  We prefer more uniform speeds.

That’s one reason behind the change. The second are crashes.

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Over a three-year period, there were 120 collisions within this 7 mile area in the 55 mile per hour zone with half (55) resulting in one or more injuries.

On the east end of this 7 mile stretch, the collision rate was 15% higher than a typical statewide road like this.  In this same area, the collisions with injuries rate was 40% higher than a typical statewide road like this.

For the entire stretch of road (all seven miles) the collision rate was exactly the state average. But the injury rate for the entire stretch was 20% higher than average.

There you have it, folks.

Holter told us back in December that the change was implemented on November 28. However, several readers contacted Patch asking about it as they had not received any notice ahead of time about the reduction.

In fact, it appeared drivers were more irked that they weren't told ahead of time, rather than about the reduction itself. To that point, she responded that the department did work with the cities Auburn and Enumclaw as well as the Muckleshoot Tribe so that most people involved knew the change was coming.

On top of that, the department generally sends a traffic advisory to media (including Patch) and flags the signs. "We did not do this," she said, of this particular case.

Could the WSDOT have done better in communicating the change? "Yes. It was certainly an oversight and not at all intentional," she said.

Patch checked with our readers on our Facebook page about what they thought about the speed limit change. Contrary to those who contacted us earlier, no one appeared to be bothered that the WSDOT didn't give any warning. Instead, most readers felt there were better ways to increase safety along SR164 rather than simply changing the speed limit.

Dion Clements wrote, "Why not aim at putting more street lights along the road? With as many people walking down that road in the dark of night-wearing dark clothes-shouldn't that be more important than reducing the speed? Isn't that a state hwy?"

Reesia Roth agreed about the pedestrians along the highway. "...they should look into other means for people to walk around on the State HWY .... its scary when they are wearing dark clothing .... they should not decrease the speed its already bad enough... with the ones that do not obey the 55 speed limit now 50....

Perhaps in light of in Buckley that left a 26-year-old Milton Man dead, Tyler Chilman suggested further reducing the speed limit. "With the traffic and intersections it should be reduced to 45 mph. That would also be appropriate between Buckley and Bonney Lake."

But with regards to the foot traffic, Chilman suggested possible some walking and biking lanes.


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