Q: What is Assembly Bill No. 43?
A: California Assembly Bill No. 43 (AB 43) provides cities more flexibility when establishing speed limits in business and residence districts. AB 43 allows for reduction of speed limits after considering safety, land uses, and concentration levels of bicyclists and pedestrians, especially those from vulnerable groups such as children, seniors, persons with disabilities, and individuals experiencing homelessness. AB 43 also allows lowered speed limits on sections of roadways in a “business activity district”, such as neighborhood downtowns. AB 43 went into effect in 2022 and revised the process by which traffic surveys are prepared.
Q: What is an Engineering and Traffic Survey?
A: Engineering and Traffic Survey (E&TS) is an engineering study used for setting roadway speed limits based on prevailing speeds (or 85th percentile speed) and review of roadway traffic conditions and history.
Q: What is the City’s strategy for applying AB 43?
A: The City strives to be proactive in improving traffic safety and is conducting a study to review traffic speeds in San Rafael as part of the next E&TS update in 2025. Starting with the downtown area, the study will identify roadway corridors that can benefit from reduced speed limits based on evaluation of the built environment, collision history, and roadway usage. Roadway corridors that are deemed appropriate to have lower speed limits will be presented to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee for feedback in Fall 2024 and recommended to City Council for approval prior to implementation. AB 43 requires speed limits to be adopted by an ordinance of City Council.
Following the evaluation of the new downtown area speed limits implementation and feedback, the City will evaluate other roadways in San Rafael that would be appropriate and follow the same review and City Council approval process described above. Final speed limits will be incorporated into the City’s E&TS update which will establish the legal basis for speed limit enforcement with the Marin County Superior Court.
Q: How are the study areas in the AB 43 Strategy selected?
A: The 2024 Marin County Local Road Safety Plan indicates that many streets in Downtown San Rafael experience elevated collision rates, and that reducing vehicle speeds would increase safety outcomes of vulnerable road user groups, such as bicyclists, pedestrians, persons with disabilities, and individuals experiencing homelessness. As such, the initial study will focus on the downtown area, where most vehicle collisions resulted in injury or fatality (as shown in figure below). Starting with the downtown area allows the City to leverage specific provisions of AB 43 for “business activity district” to improve traffic safety and slow vehicles, which gives drivers the opportunity to discover and experience what Downtown San Rafael has to offer.
Future study areas will focus on other roadways with high levels of pedestrian and bicycle activity and a history of frequent crashes. These areas may include roadway corridors near schools, parks, community centers, and locations with a high presence of seniors, children, other vulnerable groups, and collision history.
