Reducing Local Street Speed Limits in Bellevue: Safety Starts on Your Street – Part 2

This is Part 2 of the blog series on Bellevue’s journey to lowering the speed limit on local streets. In Part 1, we covered why Bellevue considered a speed limit reduction, examining the policy and code context for doing so, how we tested/piloted a lower local street speed limit in three neighborhoods, and explored lessons learned from these pilots.

In this blog, we will look at how these pilots supported a citywide speed limit reduction by touching on public outreach, council and other internal coordination, implementation, and approaches to arterial speed management.

Moving from Pilot to Citywide Implementation

Following successful pilots in Surrey Downs, the East Bellevue Greenway, and in Eastgate, we moved forward with a comprehensive change to local speed limits. We knew such a change would attract a lot of attention, so we wanted to approach the project with a robust outreach plan before the council took any action to change the speed limit.

At the February 2024 kick-off meeting with the Bellevue City Council, staff sought approval to begin public outreach so we could return later in 2024 with recommendations. At that meeting, a comprehensive outreach plan was shared that included clear goals of informing, educating, and answering questions the public had about a lower speed limit.

Following direction from the council, the outreach plan was put into action. As a starting point, the Local Street Speed Limit Reduction webpage was launched and translated into the top seven languages spoken in Bellevue. Additional features included an on-demand webinar, a schedule of events, an interactive map, frequently asked questions (FAQ), and a virtual comment box.

With a robust, accessible web presence, in-person outreach was the next step. Staff focused on attending as many in-person activities and community meetings as possible. We focused on meeting people where they were — as opposed to making them travel to city hall — by attending existing functions that attracted a high number of attendees, such as local farmers markets, the city’s July 4 celebration, the opening of the Sound Transit Link 2 Line, several Experience Bellevue events, and the Earth Day festival.

Additionally, staff reached out to registered community associations, offering to present the project during their regularly scheduled meetings (including going to a local pub to share project information ahead of the group’s karaoke night). Finally, staff reached out to established city networks, such as Bellevue Essentials alumni and the Bellevue Diversity Advisory Network.

The benefit of this robust in-person outreach was to have more nuanced conversations than traditional virtual project meetings or email campaigns typically generate. For example, if a community member thought that simply lowering the speed limit would not have any impact on operating speeds, staff could share that the concept had already been tested in Bellevue and resulted in proven reductions in high-end speeding.

We estimate that we talked to/engaged with hundreds of individuals during these sessions. As our original direction was to inform, educate, and answer community questions about a lower speed limit, we were well-positioned to return to our council with both the questions we heard from the community and how their concerns would be alleviated.

Through countless interactions, we synthesized the questions/comments into six key areas:

• Will the speed limit be effective?
• Will the speed limit be enforced?
• Will there be improved safety outcomes?
• Will trips take longer?
• Will speeds be reduced on arterials?
• Will there be traffic calming?

At the city council’s October 15 study session visit, staff shared a summary of outreach activities conducted, the questions we heard, and the overarching idea that — in speaking with the community — there is broad agreement that vehicles travel too fast in Bellevue neighborhoods. The council unanimously directed staff to return with an ordinance to lower the speed limit, which was subsequently approved on October 22.

The importance of starting with internal coordination

A comprehensive speed limit change will likely attract a lot of attention from the community — but it will also attract attention from your agency and internal stakeholders. Based on our experience, we recommend that you chart policy and planning guidance which supports the change, and present this to your internal leadership. (At Bellevue, this resulted in meetings and briefings with staff both at the transportation department level and the city manager’s office.)

Once you receive internal direction and support, we recommend you consider other internal stakeholders. There are likely more staff and departments that will be impacted by a change of this scale, such as:

• Police department: Understand their enforcement capacity, get on the same page with regards to how enforcement should play into the overall messaging, and share data if you know there are locations with higher-than-average speeding based on speed studies.
• Street maintenance: Set expectations around who will perform the sign installations, ask how they inventory signs and pavement marking legends, and understand any planned maintenance on speed limit signs and/or pavement markings that should be considered.
• Traffic engineering: Ensure that the team is well-informed of speed limit changes since they often have internal authority over setting them.
• City attorney: Work with them to ensure the right internal policy exists (e.g., a speed limit setting Standard Operating Proceduce), workshop any structural changes to code, and provide a comprehensive list of streets that will be affected by the change.
• Fire department: Ensure emergency response personnel are aware of the change early on in the process. While changing the speed limit doesn’t influence response times of emergency response vehicles, it’s important to dialogue with the department as new speed management techniques are explored.
• Community development, parks, community services: Since these departments already undertake regular public outreach and offer neighborhood services, they are well-positioned to assist or advise on your outreach plan.

Citywide Implementation Process

With the city council’s approval in October, staff are beginning the design stage of the project to replace/add approximately 350 speed limit signs and 160 pavement marking legends. In many cases, existing speed limit signs do not meet current standards for sign installations. It is the city’s policy when making changes to existing city assets/infrastructure to ensure that the asset is brought up to current design standards. An earlier phase of the project consisted of a speed limit sign audit where each speed limit sign was field checked and key attributes were recorded, including photos, sign height, post type, whether the sign was blocked by vegetation, and whether additional signs were included on the post.

Ordinance 6809 changed the speed limit on most local streets. There were a handful of streets that remained at their existing speed limit (of 25 mph or 30 mph); 12 remained at 25 mph. Staff identified these streets because, while technically designated as “local” streets, they operated more like an arterial based on access density characteristics and their connections to higher-volume, higher-speed roadways (e.g. major arterials).

We are engaging a consultant to design the entire sign replacement project and will hire a contractor to manage the project installation. While swapping out signs seems like a straight-forward project, due to the number and distribution of signs, it requires a detailed schedule with clearly identified locations of where signs are being removed, replaced, or added, along with identifying unique traffic control plans. Ultimately, a package of plans, specifications, and estimates will allow a contractor to better bid on the project and will make construction inspection smoother by having detailed directions as to what activity will occurs at each of the 350 sign and 160 pavement marking locations.

Since the city has never considered a project of this scale before, pre-design activities were delivered by the consultant as proof of concept in how to develop a plan set of this scale. During this time, the consultant developed an approach on how to draw up clear plans that communicate where existing posts need to be replaced and/or relocated, where new installations are going, and where only the sign needs to be replaced. The consultant used the speed limit sign audit data and GIS data to develop a draft plan for one Bellevue neighborhood. Following concurrence with the city, this approach will be expanded upon for each Bellevue neighborhood during full design and should ultimately reduce overall design time and effort.

We anticipate that design will occur through mid-2025 with implementation occurring that fall or spring 2026. Work is partly weather dependent as the pavement marking legends require warmer, drier weather for installation. The exact sequencing of construction activities will be agreed upon with the city and contractor. An education and outreach component will ensure the community is well aware of the change in speed limits, and a comprehensive evaluation study will be undertaken to measure the effectiveness of the change.

Moving Beyond Local Streets

While Bellevue has spent approximately five years to get to this point on local streets, the journey to arterial speed management is just beginning. With the completion of the Speed Management Plan (SMP; 2024), the city is working toward broader arterial speed management in the coming years.

The SMP focuses on arterial roadways with a posted speed limit of 30 mph or greater. The plan’s countermeasure toolbox details engineering solutions that may be appropriate for a given arterial corridor based on land use, speed limit, and impact to emergency response vehicles. The SMP also includes a sorting tool to help identify which corridors could benefit from speed management countermeasures. 

It is anticipated that to do a thorough, comprehensive review/adjustment of arterial speed limits, a transparent community and council process will be undertaken, with work expected to begin in 2025.

Conclusion

Careful alignment with city policies and plans (ensuring the lower speed limit is contextually appropriate for Bellevue) and careful internal coordination has paved the way for a successful launch of lower local street speed limits. While Bellevue has taken an iterative approach, we have learned that this project is responding to community concerns while also demonstrating that a lower speed limit can meaningfully reduce speeds. This approach — though years in the making — has created a solid framework and credibility for expanding speed limit reviews beyond just local streets.

For our city, the testing, expansive outreach, and transparency was crucial to our success and matched with our city’s mission of providing exceptional customer service, upholding the public interest, and advancing the community vision. As we move toward implementation and evaluation, we are excited to share the results of the change, how the community responded, and how we are advancing our Vision Zero goals.