A few speed limits in Arcata may be lowered to 20 MPH at some point.

The Arcata Transportation Safety committee voted yesterday to establish a subcommittee to look at changing the speed limit from 25 MPH to 20 MPH in areas like senior centers and heavily used hiking trails. 

California Assembly Bill 43, signed into law Oct. 2021, allows local authorities to slow the existing speed limit by five miles an hour by a few methods. If there are a lot of pedestrians, cyclists or vulnerable groups like the elderly or children using the street, the limit can be lowered. Up to 20% of a jurisdiction’s streets can be designated “safety corridors” on higher-risk areas and the speed limit can be lowered. Those methods can only be used after completing a traffic survey, but the speed limit in some “business activity districts” can be set at 20 MPH without one.

The subcommittee is tasked with finding those higher-risk places where it might be worth it to lower the speed limit.

There’s no word on when the limits might be lowered, but seeing as the transportation safety committee has discussed the potential ramifications of AB 43 since it passed two years ago, it’s safe to say it might be a while.