Agenda - Public Works Committee - 04/21/2009

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;"\" 3.3 Residential.Roadway 3.3.1 Residential Roadway Discussion The current text for residential roadway is reprinted below. Statute 169.01, Subd. 81. Residential Roadway. IIResidential roadway" means a street or portion of a street that is less than one- half mile in length and is functionally classified as a local stl'eet.by the road authority having jurisdiction. ThecoroUary,point to iliisdefmition is that cities may seta 25 MPRspeed limit on a residential roadway, without a speed study, if adopted by the road. authority having jurisdiction over the residential roadway (see MS 169'.14 Subd. 2(a)(7)). This definition in the statute was originally scaled to one-quarter mile length roads (I.e., truly short roads or cul-de-sacs), but at a later date the text was altered to one- half mile to encompass an exception condition. The Task Force spent a considerable amount of time discussing the merits and application of the residential roadway provision. Because of the vague terminology "street or portion of street~" some Task Force members expressed concern over potential misapplication of the residential roadway provision. Informal observations indicate that some cities do make more frequent use of this provision. However, even with more frequent use oithe provision, it is impractical for incorrect use to occur due to the signing requirements that are part of the statute. When implementing a 2S wlPH speed limit under this provision, cities are required to install speed limit signs at the beginnh1g and end of . the, residential roadway. This requirement makes it impractical to attempt to.lengthe1'1 , the 25 :MPH zone beyond the half-mile limit set in the statute. It was also acknowledged in the Task Force meetings that if the basic statutory speed limit for urban districts were to change to 25 .MFR, then this residential roadway definition would become irrelevant and should be removed from statute. Several options were developed in the Task Force in an attempt to clarify the definition and limit the possibility that this provision could be implemented incorrectly. A guiding point in reaching a decision was the idea that the original intent of the Residential Roadway provision was to apply to entire (short) roads, not to segments within continuous roads. The Task Force decided to return to that intended usage. The Task Force recommendation is to delete "or portion of a street" . from the provision to clarify the text. If changed in that way, the statute would clearly only apply to. truly short roads. With the proposed change in the statute text, the element that includes "a porti011 of a street" would no longer apply. This means that roadway segments, as opposed to a complete length of road under a half mile, that have been signed as 25 MPH zones under 169.14, Subd. 2 (7) would no longer be eligible to retain the 25 MPH status solely on the Residential Roadway basis. These zones, and the corresponding Page 18 45