City offers compromise on Highway 1 speed limit

The Fairfield City Council Public Safety and Transportation Committee is recommending a compromise to the Iowa Department of Transportation?s request to raise the speed limit on Highway 1.

During a meeting Tuesday, the committee reviewed a proposal to set the speed limit at 30 miles per hour on Highway 1 from roughly 500 feet north of Buchanan Avenue to 150 feet north of Briggs Avenue.

Councilman Daryn Hamilton said increasing the speed limit to 30 miles per hour along one block of Burlington Avenue, where the highway jogs over from Second Street to Main Street, does not make sense.

The committee agreed to the speed limit change on Highway 1 South up to Burlington Avenue. City administrator Jeff Clawson said he would consult the IDOT about the revision and prepare an ordinance for the full council?s consideration.

In October, the council passed an ordinance reducing the speed on Highway 1 South to 45 miles per hour from 227th Street, near CR Quilts, to approximately 1,000 feet south of Buchanan Avenue.

Hamilton said the IDOT belief that speed limits needed adjusted elsewhere along the highway has held up installation of signage for the 45 mile per hour zone.