Bill Text: CA AB529 | 2011-2012 | Regular Session | Introduced

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Vehicles: speed limits: downward speed zoning.

Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill

Status: (Passed) 2011-10-07 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 528, Statutes of 2011. [AB529 Detail]

Download: California-2011-AB529-Introduced.html

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BILL NUMBER: AB 529	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Gatto
   (Coauthor: Assembly Member Smyth)

                        FEBRUARY 15, 2011

   An act to amend Section 21400 of, and to add Section 22358.6 to,
the Vehicle Code, relating to vehicles.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 529, as introduced, Gatto. Vehicles: speed limits: pilot
project.
   (1) Existing law requires the Department of Transportation, after
consultation with local agencies and public hearings, to adopt rules
and regulations prescribing uniform standards and specifications for
all official traffic control devices. Existing law makes it a crime
for a driver to fail to obey a sign or signal, defined as regulatory
in the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or a
Department of Transportation approved supplement to that manual.
   This bill would require the Department of Transportation to revise
the California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, as it read
on January 1, 2012, with regard to the posting of the speed limit
and would prohibit the department from revising certain provisions of
the California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices that allow
a local agency to reduce speed limits by an additional 5 miles per
hour, under the circumstances specified in that manual.
   (2) Existing law allows a local authority, by ordinance, to
determine and declare a prima facie speed limit, upon the basis of an
engineering and traffic survey, on any portion of any street other
than a state highway, under certain conditions.
    This bill would allow, as a pilot project, the City of Glendale
to enact an ordinance to set a speed limit on any major roadway, as
defined, located in that city if the city council determines there is
a demonstrable public safety concern due to escalating traffic
collision and fatality rates. The bill would require the ordinance to
require the pilot program to terminate 5 years after the effective
date of the ordinance and would require the police department of the
City of Glendale to submit a report to the Legislature on the effect
of local speed limit control on lowering traffic collisions and
fatalities.
   The bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to
the necessity of a special statute.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 21400 of the Vehicle Code is amended to read:
   21400.   (a)     (1)    The
Department of Transportation shall, after consultation with local
agencies and public hearings, adopt rules and regulations prescribing
uniform standards and specifications for all official traffic
control devices placed pursuant to this code, including, but not
limited to, stop signs, yield right-of-way signs, speed restriction
signs, railroad warning approach signs, street name signs, lines and
markings on the roadway, and stock crossing signs placed pursuant to
Section 21364. 
   The 
    (   2   )     The 
Department of Transportation shall, after notice and public hearing,
determine and publicize the specifications for uniform types of
warning signs, lights, and devices to be placed upon a highway by
 any   a  person engaged in performing work
 which   that  interferes with or
endangers the safe movement of traffic upon that highway. 
    Only 
    (   3   )     Only 
those signs, lights, and devices as are provided for in this section
shall be placed upon a highway to warn traffic of work  which
  that  is being performed on the highway.

   Any 
    (   4   )     control
  Control  devices or markings installed upon
traffic barriers on or after January 1, 1984, shall conform to the
uniform standards and specifications required by this section. 
   (b) The Department of Transportation shall revise the California
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, as it read on January 1,
2012, to require that when a speed limit is to be posted, it should
be within 10 kilometers per hour or 5 miles per hour of the
85th-percentile speed of free-flowing traffic. The Department of
Transportation shall not revise those provisions of the California
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, as it read on January 1,
2012, that allow a local agency to reduce speed limits by an
additional 5 miles per hour, under the circumstances specified in
that manual. 
  SEC. 2.  Section 22358.6 is added to the Vehicle Code, to read:
   22358.6.   (a) For purposes of this section, "major roadway"
includes a state highway, as defined in Section 24 of the Streets and
Highways Code, a county highway, as defined in Section 25 of the
Streets and Highways Code, or a highway, as defined in Section 360,
but does not include a freeway, as defined in Section 23.5 of the
Streets and Highways Code.
   (b) Notwithstanding Section 22358, the City of Glendale, as a
pilot project, may enact an ordinance to set a speed limit on any
major roadway located in that city if the city council determines
there is a demonstrable public safety concern due to escalating
traffic collisions and fatality rates. The ordinance shall require
this pilot program to terminate five years after the effective date
of the ordinance.
   (c) Six months after the termination of the pilot program
specified in subdivision (b), the police department of the City of
Glendale shall submit a report to the Legislature on the effect of
the pilot program's local speed limit controls on lowering traffic
collisions and fatalities.
  SEC. 3.  Due to the unique circumstances in which the City of
Glendale has experienced increasing speeds on some of its main
arterials, including Glenoaks Blvd, which have caused safety problems
for the city, and the fact that 44 percent of the city's speed limit
signs will be increased due to changes made by the California Manual
on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, it is necessary that, and the
Legislature finds and declares that, a general statute cannot be made
applicable within the meaning of Section 16 of Article IV of the
California Constitution.