Crews to reduce speed limit on major Columbia roadway Wednesday

To improve traffic safety, the City of Columbia has adopted an ordinance to lower the speed limit on South Providence, from Mick Deaver Memorial Drive to Route K from 55 mph to 50 mph. The change takes effect when the permanent signs are posted Wednesday, December 7.

The change comes following a traffic study in which the area’s crash history, access to the road, increased traffic, and both pedestrian and bicycle traffic were all taken into consideration. Over the past five years, there have been over 50 injury crashes on that stretch of roadway.

“All of our indicators are saying, ‘there’s more traffic coming through the area, there’s more presence of pedestrians…’ As oppose to lowering some sections and leaving some sections the same we just wanted to make sure it’s a consistent message of 50 miles per hour through that section,” John Schaefer, Senior MoDOT Traffic Studies Specialist tells ABC 17 News.

“During this five year period, the addition of bus stops on this route–on Providence Road itself–have been added, so that draws pedestrians into the area as well…” Schaefer notes, adding, “Game days, people park along the road so you have an increased presence of pedestrians at that time.”

Two pedestrians were hit in 2015–one of those was killed. Schaefer says that 5 mile per hour difference can have a big impact on reaction time.

“When you’re looking at five miles per hour–from 55 to 50–if you do the math, it’s about 15 seconds…additional onto your time by lowering that,” he explains. “It really isn’t a difference on your speed. Now what it can do is give you more time to react to a situation and give you more time to at least reduce your speed if not being able to stop before a collision occurs.”

The speed reduction officially takes effect on Wednesday, December 7.