Columbus City Council votes for 25 mph speed limit on all Downtown streets

The pace of life in downtown Columbus — or at least the vehicle traffic — is about to get slower.

The Columbus City Council voted 7-0 on Monday to lower the speed limits on all Downtown streets to 25 mph, which would knock 10 mph off many major routes.

While the issue officially now heads to the Ohio Department of Transportation, ODOT spokesman Matt Bruning said Tuesday that review should be perfunctory under the approach the city is using, which is to designate all of Downtown a "business district."

ODOT had previously said it would have to approve a city traffic study before the speeds could be lowered, but that was before it understood the legal approach the city intended to employ, Bruning said. Therefore, the only state action still needed is to essentially make a record in a journal of the new speed limits, he said.

Columbus officials say Downtown meets the state's definition of a business district — that 50% or more of the street frontage is occupied by buildings used for business — giving the city control of the issue. The city said Tuesday it would begin posting new speed-limit signs later this month, and all the work should be completed by March.

"If people use the rules of the road, if they use the tools that are on the roadways, we know that we can prevent crashes from happening," Council member Lourdes Barroso de Padilla said Monday in support of lowering the speed limit.

Citing statistics that the survival rate of pedestrians struck by a vehicle increases 10% to 90% by dropping vehicular speed from 40 mph to 20 mph, Barroso de Padilla said lowering speeds gives pedestrians better odds of avoiding serious injuries in a crash with a vehicle. She also cited local statistics showing that the number of people killed in traffic crashes on Columbus streets (not including freeways) almost doubled between 2015 and 2022, from 37 to 72.

Those crashes were citywide, however, and it was unclear where Downtown ranked among other areas in terms of pedestrian crashes or fatalities. The targeted Downtown zone for speed reduction is bounded by Interstate 670 to the north, Interstate 71 to the east, Interstates 70 and 71 to the south, and the Scioto River and Neil Avenue to the west.

"The roadways in the Downtown District are not suitable as through streets," background information attached to the ordinance said. "Further, these roadways are business and residential in nature, are within the core pedestrian areas, and foster a downtown neighborhood that supports a multi-modal transportation system that embraces walking, biking, and transit."

Speed limits are currently 35 mph on numerous Downtown streets: Broad, 3rd, 4th, Town, Rich, Main, Mound and Fulton streets and Grant and Cleveland avenues.

Alleys within municipal corporations are set at 15 mph, unless posted lower, state law says.

More than 130 traffic signals Downtown regulate speed by coordinating signal times, "so if a car goes 25 miles an hour you get a green light. If you go faster than that, you're going to eventually get caught up by a red traffic signal, so you're disincentivized to speed in that area," said Maria Cantrell, coordinator of the city's Vision Zero program. The program's goal is to end traffic crash-related fatalities and serious injuries by making city streets safer for motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians alike.

Crosswalk signals are also being reset to give pedestrians more time to advance across the street before the traffic signal turns green for vehicles, Cantrell said. Giving walkers a three- to seven-second head start costs the city almost nothing, but can reduce pedestrian-vehicle collisions by up to 60%, Cantrell said.

But Columbus resident Jillian Dyer, a biking advocate, told council members that an unintended consequence of the move is going to be more forced "negative interactions" between Columbus police officers and motorists — assuming police enforce the reduced speed limit.

"I have a video from my way here tonight of somebody running a red light on Summit (Avenue) with a cop at the intersection," Dyer said. "They don't enforce it. They use traffic stops as a reason to ask people about other things."

In other business, the council referred back to committee an application by the Kipp Columbus Foundation to annex more than a half-acre of property at 2588 Agler Road, adjacent to the rapidly expanding Columbus charter school situated on a 124-acre former golf course about a mile and a half from Easton Town Center.

Philanthropist Abigail Wexner, chairman, CEO and founder of Whitebarn Associates, LLC, a private investment company, was a founding member of the KIPP Columbus school board and is currently vice chairwoman. She is the wife of L Brands founder and former CEO and president Les Wexner, a New Albany billionaire whom Forbes lists as the richest person in Ohio.

Council President Pro Tem Rob Dorans, chief legal counsel for a statewide labor organization that works with unions and building trades councils, said that KIPP officials have not listened to community leaders asking the school to stop trying to intimidate employees to bust a new teachers union organizing there. Unfair labor practice charges have been filed against KIPP, which has denied the allegations.

"Until these investigations have concluded, I do not believe we as a city should be moving forward with any legislation, even something as minor as an annexation request," Dorans said in urging the council to postpone the annexation vote.

On other matters, the council:

• Approved by a 7-0 vote extending an emergency, no-bid $100,000 contract to NBC4-WCMH, a Columbus television station, for "an ongoing campaign to remind people that littering is bad" through public service announcements, Council member Emmanuel Remy, its sponsor, said. Remy had sponsored the first no-bid $100,000 contract to the station in December 2021, in which bids were waived "to avoid any delay in launching 2022 programing." The same program was reauthorized without bid this year to again avoid delays, but also because of the "need to extend (an) existing contract," a waiver form said. Remy said through a spokesperson following the meeting that the contract is similar to another no-bid contract the city has with WBNS Channel 10, CBS' Columbus affiliate TV station, to produce the "Commit to be Fit" anti-obesity campaign. WBNS has received between $67,800 and $75,000 a year from the city since 2014.

• Voted 7-0 to approve a $7.04-million payment to the RiverSouth Authority to make debt-service payments on bonds issued in 2004 and 2005 to purchase and rehabilitate the former Lazarus Department Store in downtown Columbus and refund other bonds in 2012 and in 2014. It also approved $1.85 million to make payments on bonds issued in 2016 to construct an underground parking garage and park located at the Center of Science and Industry, or COSI.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: ODOT approval sought to cut Downtown speed limits to 25 mph limit