Council rejects 25 mph speed limit proposed for most town roads

Date: 9/28/2023

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Speed limits won’t be dropping to 25 mph after a split Town Council vote on Sept. 18.

In a 6-2 vote, the council rejected a proposal to reduce the speed limit in thickly settled and business districts — a category that town officials had said includes almost every street in town other than state highways — from 30 mph to 25 mph.

Councilors Michael LaFlamme and Daniel O’Brien were the only votes in favor of the lower speed limit. Both are members of the council’s Traffic and Safety Committee.

“The number one request we get is to do something to curtail speeding and promote traffic calming in town,” said LaFlamme. “I think 25 mph would promote safe driving and would make people more conscious of their speed as they drive through town. … I think most people will adjust their speed.”

District 1 Councilor Michael Eger, the chair of the Traffic and Safety Committee, opposed the proposal. He suggested that the statewide 30 mph thickly settled limit represents a safe speed for most roads, and said West Springfield only needs drivers to abide by the limits already in place.

He also said he was concerned that an artificially low speed limit would turn almost every driver, even safe ones, into a lawbreaker, and give police an opportunity to pull over any driver, raising the specter of “discretionary enforcement” — police stops because of “how you look.”

“I’m against anything that bypasses engineering studies and makes West Springfield a speed trap,” he added.

Eger said a 25 mph speed limit would also put West Springfield out of step with most other Massachusetts communities, confusing drivers. O’Brien responded to that argument by stating that local drivers make up a large percentage of the traffic, and they would quickly learn and adapt to the new limit. Out-of-towners wouldn’t be able to speed if they were stuck behind locals observing the lower limit, he said.

Responding to Eger’s argument that the town just needs to enforce its 30 mph limit, O’Brien said the police “are not on every corner.” People routinely break speed limits by small amounts, he said, but even without seeing a police car, they think twice about exceeding the limit by a large amount.

“Each driver is the one who’s responsible to look at their speedometer and regulate their speed,” O’Brien said. “If the speed limit’s 35 mph right now, pretty much people are going anywhere between 45 and 50. … If the speed limit’s 25 and you’re going, 38, say, that’s a significant amount over the speed limit, but it’s still safer than 40 or 48.”

Eger was the only one of the six “no” votes who spoke publicly about his reasons. The other “no” votes were Brian Clune, Brian Griffin, Sean Powers, Jaime Smith and Council President Edward Sullivan.

Speaking before the vote but after he, Eger and LaFlamme had explained their positions, O’Brien said opponents of the change owed it to their constituents to say why they were voting that way.

“It is our responsibility as elected officials to do everything we can do to make West Springfield safer to drive in,” he said. “I believe in using every approach that we have.”

O’Brien said the push for lower speed limits was “just a part of a comprehensive plan we’ve been working on,” which also includes raised crosswalks and changes in roadway construction to eliminate wide, straight stretches that encourage speeding.

Sullivan said Mayor William Reichelt and Town Engineer Connor Knightly will make a presentation at the Town Council meeting on Oct. 2 about other “traffic calming” projects they would like to pursue in the next year.

Also at the Oct. 2 meeting, the council will discuss a zone change proposed by Tyler Saremi, owner of 217 Westfield St., who is proposing to turn a long-abandoned nursing home property into an apartment complex with about 50 units, most of them one-bedroom apartments. To accommodate apartments, the zoning would have to change from Business A to Residence C; it borders other properties of both zones.