The speed limit on a stretch of NW 20 Road on either side of U.S. 281 will be lowered following action by the Barton County Commission Monday morning. The approved resolution takes the speed from the default 55 miles per hour to 35 from North Washington east to a quarter mile east of U.S. 281.
County Engineer Barry McManaman was contacted by the Great Bend Township Board to do a speed study of the area. “There’s some local residents who felt like there was traffic moving too fast along that stretch of road, so we did studies on it in both directions,” he said.
And then at the township monthly meeting two weeks ago, there were a couple of residents who appeared and one of them spoke about the need for reducing the speed in what is a residential area. The township board approved the change and forwarded the request to the commission, McManaman said.
“When I first saw this come up, I thought we really can’t be out there adjusting speed limits on every county road,” District 3 Commissioner Shawn Hutchinson said. “It just wouldn’t be feasible. There’s no way to do that feasibly and logistically.”
However, this is in his district so he drove it. “I was surprised to see that there was a house every 100 yards all the way down that road, and so it made complete sense to me to look at this one.”
But, “I would caution others that want to come for us to ask for speed reductions to drive the road that is up for approval today, and understand why we did this one in particular. And in this case I do agree with it.”
“This is the way the county can be responsive to the needs of our constituents,” District 5 Commissioner Jennifer Schartz said. “If somebody else has a problem with a speed limit, bring it to us and we can do research on it. We will work with people when we need to.”
“One of the things that a speed study will bring out is the speed most people are traveling,” McManaman said. “And in this case, it bears out the fact that most people are traveling with reasonable speed and so that’s why it really supported the change.”
They did have some people in the study who were traveling really fast, he said. “So that will help us by posting 35 miles per hour.”
By state statute, the speed limit is 55 mph because it is unposted, McManaman said. During the study, drivers were clocked as high as 69 mph within a short distance bracketed by stop signs.
“This will be a reminder to those speeding who are a burden on the residents along there,” he said. There could also be some special enforcement by the Barton County Sheriff’s Office to get those people to slow down.
The change has to be published in the Great Bend Tribune first, but McManaman said the new signs should be in place in a few weeks.
