Slow-noma

Our town’s nickname is “Slow-noma,” and we think that’s a compliment.
Several long-time Sonoma Valley residents claim to recall a time when the “traffic” on Highway 12 through Boyes Springs might be counted in cars per hour, and just barely make double digits – not cars per minute. A time when drivers of two approaching vehicles might recognize each another, roll down their windows and stop to chat – right there in the middle of the road.
While those days are certainly gone (if they ever really existed), the city council seems poised to push them further away by increasing the speed limits on six thoroughfares in the city. At its meeting Wednesday night, the council was due to give a first reading to an ordinance that would increase the speed limit from 25 mph to 30 mph on parts of Fifth Street West, Fifth Street East, Denmark Street, Lovall Valley Road, East MacArthur Street. and Verano Avenue. And the speed limit would rise to 35 mph on Fifth Street West, from Andrieux Street south to the city limit.
Are these changes going to help us get across town faster? Not likely. Are they going to make city streets safer for pedestrians, or for the children who live on those streets? Even less likely.
In fact, this action is driven by two related factors: state law, and money.
State law requires that cities conduct speed surveys of their streets every five years. The speed limits are then supposed to set at whatever speed 85 percent of the observed vehicles are traveling (rounded to a 5 mph increment).
So … if everybody is speeding, then just raise the speed limit. Somehow, that logic is not compelling.
The money part comes into play because a speeding ticket won’t hold up in court if a) the city hasn’t done its required speed survey within the last five years and b) the speed limit isn’t set at the 85 percent point. So the local police/deputies can’t ticket “speeders” exceeding our present limits on those streets and expect the citations to hold up.
For the time a few weeks hence when the Council considers action on the new ordinance, we’d like to suggest an alternative: keep the old limits, maintain a visible presence with marked patrol cars (even parked ones), and ticket just those going faster than what the new limits would have been. That way, we still have a chance to keep the traffic slower, since few drivers will exceed a posted limit when “the cops” are there, and they can still ticket those dolts who fly down the city streets regardless of the posted limit.
Of course, we at the Sun don’t write the state laws (much to our chagrin), and this process surely will occur again, in another five years. We expect someday we’ll miss “the way it used to be.” That is, the way it is now, in Slow-noma.