Madison expands traffic safety initiative, lowering speed limits to 20 mph in residential areas

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - City of Madison traffic engineers are expanding one of their safety initiatives after seeing positive results following their pilot program.

The goal of the city’s 20 is Plenty program is to make residential neighborhoods safer by lowering speed limits to 20 mph.

In 2021, the Theresa-Hammersley and Tenney-Lapham neighborhoods were chosen for phase one of the project. Now, it is expanding city-wide.

Madison resident Josh Olson considered himself a road safety advocate even before he lost his friend in a traffic incident.

“I was already interested in trying to be safe,” Olson said. “And watching someone that I knew growing up, she’s no longer here, it was really difficult for me.”

A biker, walker, and driver, Olson says the 20 is Plenty program is a good first step in making the city’s residential roads safer.

“It’s a great opportunity to reduce injuries and deaths for my fellow Madisonians, the people who walk, either to get to the places they want to go to work, to places of worship, to school, whatever.”

Engineer 2 with the city Jeremy Nash says adjusting the speed on a road by five or ten miles per hour can mean the difference between life and death.

“There’s a big disparity,” he said. “If I’m a pedestrian and I were to get hit by a car, if they’re going 20 miles an hour, is a very low percentage of me being fatally or seriously injured, about 13%, but that increases to about 40% at 30 miles an hour. So a pretty big gap there.”

Olson hopes the initiative protects the city’s most vulnerable travelers.

“We’re moving from a coin flip to you are able to walk away and go home and see your family to 90%. And I’m going to take that every time.”

Nash says the city takes into account both crash data and geographic factors when deciding what neighborhoods to include in the project.

The city is distributing free ‘20 is Plenty’ yard signs in various languages. Those interested in a sign can email traffic@cityofmadison.com.

Click here to download the WMTV15 News app or our WMTV15 First Alert weather app.