The City of Bend issued a press release today about speed limit changes for the city. There are only four stretches of road being reduced by 5 MPH, on the south side of town. Here’s the release:

Following community input and engineering analysis, speed limits will be lowered this month on the following road sections:

• Powers Road between Parrell Road and Brookswood Boulevard – from 35 mph to 30 mph
• SE 15th Street from Lostine Circle to Ferguson Road – from 40 mph to 35 mph
• SE 15th from Ferguson Road to Knott Road – from 50 mph to 45 mph
• Country Club Drive between Knott Road and Murphy Road – from 40 mph to 35 mph

The new speed limit signs will have orange warning flags on top for a few weeks to call attention to the changes.

These speed changes were initiated by a combination of citizen requests and City staff in response to changing traffic and development along these corridors.

In Oregon, speeds for roads within the City that are not highways or local residential streets – such as the aforementioned road sections — are set by the Department of Transportation. The new speed limits are established based on a traffic study that looks at existing driving speeds, road characteristics, adjacent land use, access locations and more. It can take up to a year to complete this speed study. Most of these requests were started this past summer.

The City asks drivers to pay attention to the new speed changes and be aware of conditions. Oregon’s basic rule speed law requires driving at the speed that is safe for conditions – this may be a speed slower than the posted speed. With winter here, it is especially important to pay attention to speed.

So keep an eye out for those new speed limits.