A new bill passed in the Utah Legislature is giving cities and counties the ability to adjust speed limits without commissioning a traffic engineering and safety study.
Sponsored by Rep. Steven Lund, House Bill 235 was passed in the House Transportation Committee on Thursday. While it won’t apply to state roads, the bill will apply to roads under county jurisdictions or municipalities and will provide smaller towns with narrow roads the ability to change their speed limits.
According to Lund, he was inspired to file the bill because of these smaller towns with narrower roads having higher speed limits. He wants these smaller towns to have the ability to change their speed limits without worrying about the expenses of getting an engineering and traffic study. According to spokesman John Gleason, the Utah Department of Transportation has no position on the bill as it doesn’t affect state roads.
The Utah legislative session is still ongoing and will run through March 4th.
