SEQUIM – Speed limits are rising outside downtown Sequim and falling on a few other blocks.
Perhaps the most noticeable change: A busy portion of Fifth Avenue will cease to be a 20 mph school zone. Drivers can now do 30 mph between Cedar Street and Old Olympic Highway, said Sgt. Ken Almberg, the Sequim Police Department’s traffic safety manager.
Since that stretch of North Fifth Avenue isn’t within 300 feet of a school or playground, it needn’t be designated a school zone, Almberg said, adding that the 20 mph limit wasn’t considered enforceable there anyway.
The Sequim City Council voted forthe changes unanimous last week.
Other outlying parts of Sequim also will allow faster travel, as their speed limits rise from 25 mph to 30 mph.
These are:
And on East Washington Street from Simdars Road to Rhodefer Road, the speed limit is climbing from 35 mph to 40 mph.
For the next 30 days, Sequim Police officers will merely give speeders warnings, provided they’re not 20 or 30 miles an hour above the limit.
“Currently we stop people for 14, 15 over,” said Almberg.
The higher limits “don’t mean people can do whatever they want. If you’re going over 40 on North Fifth, plan on getting stopped.”
As the speed limit rises, “the buffer effect drops down.”
So around July 1, police will be writing tickets to those who exceed the speed limits by 10 mph or more.
The City Council also took Sequim Police Chief Robert Spinks’ recommendation to establish a new 20 mph school zone on Hendrickson Road, where Sequim Middle School is located.
That slowed zone will run from Sequim Avenue to Fifth.
Other school zones that will stay with their 20 mph limits, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. seven days a week:
This summer, Sequim Public Works Director James Bay plans to install electronic readerboards that, using radar, clock motorists’ speeds on Sequim and Fifth avenues.
He’ll place two of the $7,000 devices on each street and program each to indicate two things: the speed limit and the actual speed of passing vehicles.
Bay said he can set the readerboards to either show a “slow down” message to speeders or to flash blue and red lights “just like a cop car.”
The readerboards will appear on those avenues after school lets out June 20, Bay said .
At this point he prefers the flashing lights, and figures they’re more effective than words.
When school isn’t in session – from June 21 through Sept. 4 – the speed limit in school zones will go up to 25 mph.
That’s another change enacted Tuesday by the City Council.
Until now the 20 mph school-zone speed limit was enforceable 365 days a year.
