Brief, passing thoughts on traffic congestion, local speed limits

Cameron County has one street on the list. So do Denton, Montgomery, Williamson and Collin counties. A portion of Mockingbird Lane in Dallas makes the list. So does a stretch of Oak Lawn Avenue in Dallas. But not a single street or highway in Kyle, San Marcos or anywhere else in Hays County makes the list of the 100 most congested roadways in Texas.

That’s something to think about on election day when you are deciding whether the county should go further into debt to pay for new and expanded highways in the county.

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Enforceable speed limit sign

stumbled across this interesting list while researching laws governing speed limits in residential neighborhoods because I’ve been hearing a lot of clamoring, especially among my neighbors in the Plum Creek area, about speed limits and the enforcement of same. I’ve seen all these very well-meaning signs pop up around the hood pleading with motorists to "Drive like your kids live here," which is fine. But then at the bottom of those signs appear the words "Speed Limit 25 MPH."

Just because the locals want a 25 MPH speed limit doesn’t mean that is the speed limit or that wishing it was makes such a limit enforceable.

Unenforceable speed limit sign

The de-facto speed limit on residential streets in Texas is 30 miles an hour. Kyle, of course, may adjust those speed limits anywhere in the city where it sees fit to do so but it must, according to the Texas Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, post an accepted device and only an accepted device "(1) where the speed limit changes; and (2) beyond major intersections and at other locations where it is necessary to remind road users of the correct speed limit."

In other words, although many vigilantes wish this were not so, the police cannot legally stop a motorist for speeding who is driving 30 miles an hour through an area of Plum Creek, or any other neighborhood in Kyle, unless one of the accepted, recognized speed limit signs is in plain view.