'Speed kills:' Palm Springs to reduce speed limits on several roads through new state law

Local drivers should keep an eye out: New speed limits are arriving in several parts of Palm Springs.

In an effort to reduce the number of traffic collisions and fatalities in the city, 36 segments of local streets are set to have reduced speed limits, a step made possible through the passage of a bill last year that gives California cities more flexibility to target speeding in unsafe areas.

The bill's sponsor, Assemblymember Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, joined several local officials, including Palm Springs Mayor Lisa Middleton, at a local fire station Friday to highlight the legislation and its local implementation.

The majority of the street segments will see their speed limits drop by 5 mph, while a few street segments will be reduced by 10 or 15 mph. In total, the reductions will cover about 16.5 miles of local roads, according to the city engineer’s office.

“Every time we lower a speed limit, even five miles an hour, the chance of you being seriously injured or killed in an accident if you're hit, decreases exponentially,” said Friedman, who chairs the Legislature’s Assembly Transportation Committee. “Those five miles an hour makes a huge difference.”

Other cities have taken advantage of the new law, which took effect in January, as Friedman said the City of Los Angeles just reduced speed limits along 200 miles of its roads. In Palm Springs, the city council was quick to set the process in motion following the bill’s passage last fall, agreeing to an ordinance in December after identifying the 36 roadways where reductions could be applied.

The issue has been pronounced over the last decade: Palm Springs saw 11,000 car crashes with an injury between 2013 and 2021, according to city Police Chief Andy Mills.

“First of all, speed kills … On average, we have nine (traffic) fatalities a year,” Mills said. “It's far too many for a city our size, and 20%, so one in five, of injury collisions, the primary causal factor is speeding. That has to stop.”

“I know that some people feel like they're Mario Andretti and that they can handle any type of type of traffic condition, but the fact is that they can't,” the police chief added.

Palm Springs had an above-average number of traffic deaths in 2021, when there were 16, according to Kevin Nalder, the city’s fire chief.

“I can guarantee you that those were all at high speeds, and they all probably involve either an extrication or something that made the patients not actually be able to get definitive care quickly,” Nalder said.

The issue extends across the region, as the Coachella Valley saw traffic fatalities jump 28% in 2021, according to previous reporting from The Desert Sun. While the Coachella Valley accounts for about 19% of the county's population, it had about 25% of all traffic deaths in 2021.

More: Coachella Valley traffic fatalities jump 28% in 2021, pedestrian deaths fall slightly

Middleton, who served on a statewide task force to study the issue, recalled a meeting several years ago with residents of the Ramon Mobile Home and RV Park, which sits near the corner of Sunrise Way and Ramon Road, that spurred her advocacy. During the meeting, several attendees asked why people had died crossing the street to the pharmacy, grocery store and senior center on the other side of the block.

“As speaker after speaker got up and talked, more and more of them were crying … as they talked about how frightened they were to cross the street, to get to the grocery store, to get to the senior center, how many of them had stopped walking down a block or two to their friends’ apartments, because the traffic was just too fast,” Middleton recalled. “It didn't feel safe to them anymore.”

Although Friedman’s legislation, Assembly Bill 43, gives some options to cities to address reckless driving, speed limits in California are largely still set by the 85th percentile of motorists driving along a given road — a rule that Middleton called “ridiculous” on Friday.

“It's built on a theory that 15% of the drivers speed, and everybody else is driving an appropriate speed limit,” Middleton said, adding: “We did not eliminate the 85th percentile rule with AB 43. We wounded it. I'm not going to quit until we kill it.”

Palm Springs could soon take other steps to address speeding and traffic collisions, depending on the fate of other bills pending in the California Legislature.

This year, Friedman has introduced a bill that would establish pilot programs for five cities to use cameras to enforce speed limits on their most dangerous streets. Middleton said she plans to work with Friedman’s office “to check out how we become one of those five cities.”

“We know there's millions of people who come visit us,” Middleton said. “Those millions of people who come visit us, we want them to be able to go home. Too many times in our city, they do not, and they do not in large part because people are driving too fast.”

On Friday, the group of local officials unveiled a new speed limit sign along Toledo Avenue between La Verne Way and Murray Canyon, which was reduced from 45 mph to 40 mph. Middleton said remaining street segments will have new signs, which are marked with orange flags for their first 30 days, “very soon.”

Middleton also told The Desert Sun the city will continue to do traffic surveys to examine other possible stretches that could be targeted in the future, pointing to Ramon Road, Palm Canyon Drive and Indian Canyon Drive as areas of focus. She also noted Vista Chino and Gene Autry Trail, on the stretches where they are Highway 111, fall outside of the city’s purview and are controlled by Caltrans.

The roads that will see their speed limits reduced are as follows:

• Alejo Road from West End to Miraleste (35 mph to 30 mph)

• Alejo Road from Sunrise Way to Farrell Drive (45 mph to 40 mph)

• Alejo Road from Farrell Drive to East End (35 mph to 30 mph)

• Amado Road from Indian Canyon Drive to Avenida Caballeros (40 mph to 35 mph)

• Amado Road from Sunrise Way to Farrell Drive (40 mph to 35 mph)

• Baristo Road from Sunrise Way to Farrell Drive (40 mph to 35 mph)

• Baristo Road from Farrell Drive to El Cielo Road (40 mph to 35 mph)

• Belardo Road from Ramon Road to Sunny Dunes Road (40 mph to 35 mph)

• Belardo Road from Sunny Dunes to South Belardo Road/Palm Canyon Drive (40 mph to 35 mph)

• Bogert Trail from Palm Canyon Wash to South End (35 mph to 30 mph)

• Calle Encilia from Tahquitz Canyon Way to Arenas Road (35 mph to 30 mph)

• Calle Encilia from Arenas Road to Ramon Road (35 mph to 30 mph)

• Camino Real from La Verne Way to Avenida Granada (35 mph to 25 mph)

• Camino Real from Avenida Granada to Murray Canyon Way (35 mph to 25 mph)

• Civic Drive from Tahquitz Canyon Way to Baristo Road (30 mph to 25 mph)

• El Cielo Road from North End to Tahquitz Canyon Way (45 mph to 40 mph)

• El Cielo Road from Tahquitz Canyon Way to Ramon Road (45 mph to 40 mph)

• El Cielo Road from Ramon Road to Mesquite Avenue (45 mph to 40 mph)

• Escoba Drive from El Cielo Road to East Palm Canyon Drive (45 mph to 40 mph)

• Farrell Drive from Alejo Road to Tahquitz Canyon Way (45 mph to 40 mph)

• Farrell Drive from Tahquitz Canyon Way to Ramon Road (45 mph to 40 mph)

• Farrell Drive from Mesquite Avenue from East Palm Canyon Drive (45 mph to 40 mph)

• Murray Canyon Drive from South Palm Canyon Drive to Camino Real (45 mph to 40 mph)

• Murray Canyon Drive from Camino Real to Toledo Ave (45 mph to 40 mph)

• Paseo Dorotea from Ramon Road to Mesquite Avenue (30 mph to 25 mph)

• Ramon Road from West End to South Palm Canyon Drive (30 mph to 25 mph)

• Ramon Road from Gene Autry Trail to San Luis Rey Drive (45 mph to 40 mph)

• San Luis Rey Drive from Ramon Road to Dinah Shore Drive (50 mph to 35 mph)

• San Rafael Drive from North Palm Canyon Drive to Virginia Road (50 mph to 40 mph)

• San Rafael Drive from Virginia Road to Indian Canyon Drive (50 mph to 40 mph)

• Sunny Dunes Road from South Palm Canyon Drive to Calle Palo Fierro (35 mph to 30 mph)

• Sunny Dunes Road from Compadre Way to El Cielo Road (35 mph to 30 mph)

• Sunny Dunes Road from Belardo Road to South Palm Canyon Drive (35 mph to 30 mph)

• Tachevah Drive from Avenida Caballeros to Sunrise Way (40 mph to 35 mph)

• Tachevah Drive from Sunrise Way to Farrell Drive (45 mph to 40 mph)

• Toledo Avenue from La Verne Way to Murray Canyon Drive (45 mph to 40 mph)

Tom Coulter covers politics and can be reached at thomas.coulter@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs to reduce speed limits on some roads through new state law