City aims to lower Hwy. 92 speed limit

WASHINGTON — A city council meeting on Dec. 20 featured the first of three legally-required public hearings for a proposal that would lower the speed limit to 45 miles per hour on a portion of Highway 92 east of Washington.

If the change passes three public hearings without a hitch, it would lower outbound speed limit from 50 miles per hour and the inbound one from 55. Specifically, the adjustment would span an area starting 340 feet east of Airport Road and ending 1,020 feet east of Wiley Avenue, according to the council’s meeting materials.

“This adjustment is to make transportation safer,” Mayor Jaron Rosien said in an interview after the first public hearing last week. “There’s several spots where you pull out, and even with safe behaviors, it requires rapid acceleration to avoid coming into contact with other vehicles.”

Anecdotally, Rosien said he expected the proposed change to have little impact on commuters.

“I’ve noticed (drivers) following what will become the actual speed limit,” he said. “Cars seem to naturally be slowing down a little, because it’s dangerous to not … as someone that drives around town all of the time, I think this is already taking place and is not a major change.”

The move was recommended by an Iowa Department of Transportation study conducted in 2020, but received by the city in recent weeks. That analysis predates some newer retail buildings on Wiley Avenue, which council members said gave another incentive to slow vehicles.

“At that time, we didn’t have some of the business developments that are going on now near Walmart,” Council Member Bethany Glinsmann said. “I wonder if, doing the study, having known about the developments, they would have moved it down a little further.”

That study showed the 85th percentile of drivers exceeding the speed limits around Airport Road and Palm Avenue, but traveling slightly below it closer to Wiley Avenue.

City Administrator Deanna McCusker said the council would have to change municipal ordinances to alter the speed limit, even though the highway is a state road.

“Since this is recommended (by) the DOT … they will update and relocate the signage reflecting these changes,” she said in a memo.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com