Town finalizes speed reduction proposal

By Dan King
Back in July, the Town of Whitehall drafted a proposal to reduce the speed limits of a few town and county roads and this proposal has now been finalized.
Town Supervisor George Armstrong referred to the remaining process as a “long drawn out affair,” before turning it over to Highway Superintendent Louie Pratt for the in-depth explanation of the details of this process.
The town must first draft a resolution, which Town Attorney Erika Sellar-Ryan has already done. The next step is to send the resolution to the county to get it approved, then the county sends it to the state and the state has a lengthy review process before any speed limits are changed.
“They told me it could take up to a year,” Pratt explained. “They conduct a test, which consists of volume of traffic and speed of traffic. With as many roads as we’ve included, it could take awhile”
Sometime in the near future, residents will likely begin to see wires running across the roads, in order to gage the volume of traffic and speed limit signs equipped with radar to detect the speed of traffic on these roads.
The proposal from the town advocates a reduction from 55 miles per hour to 40 miles per hour, but the decision is ultimately up to the state. The state will review the data from the tests and will either elect to change the speed limits to the town’s proposal, change them to a different speed or keep them the way they are.
The following roads will be impacted by the speed limit reductions, Beckett Road, Beckwith Road, Stalker Road, Upper Turnpike Road, Abair Road, Winters Road, Buckley Road, Hatch Hill Road, County Routes 9, 9a, 9b, 10, 11, 12, 18 and 21.