ELKINS — Elkins City Council has approved the first reading of an ordinance that would reduce the speed limit to 15 miles per hour in a defined residential area of Fourth Ward.

During City Council’s Dec. 4 meeting, all nine council members present voted in favor of the first reading of Ordinance 349, which if passed would reduce the speed limit to 15 miles per hour on all streets bounded by Sycamore Street, Randolph Avenue, Diamond Street and “the City’s eastern boundary.” Fifth Ward representative Cody Thompson was absent from the meeting.

This was the first of two readings for the ordinance, which will have to pass the second reading before it goes into effect.

According to Ordinance 349, homeowners and residents in the affected area had “expressed concerns” regarding vehicle speeds, pedestrian safety and neighborhood conditions to the city. The resolution also states that, while the average posted speed limit in the area is 25 miles per hour, some portions already have posted speed limits of 15 miles per hour, “resulting in a patchwork of speed limits that can create confusion for motorists and inconsistent enforcement conditions.”

While Diamond Street will be included in the speed limit change if the ordinance is passed, the speed limits on Sycamore Street and Randolph Avenue will not be affected.

The roads that will be affected by the ordinance if it is passed are Bell Street, Boundary Avenue, Boyd Street, Buffalo Street, Cherry Street, Church Lane, Court Street, Diamond Street, Earle Street, Elm Street, Fayette Street, Gay Street, Guy Street, High Street, Howe Avenue, Key Street, Kirk Street, Locust Street, Marro Drive, Oak Street, Park Street, Paule Street, Prospect Street, Slaughterhouse Hill Road, Summit Street, Sugar Hill Lane, Terrace Avenue, Thorne Avenue, Vine Street, Vista Avenue, Weese Street and Woodford Drive.

The speed limits in all alleys within the described area will also be changed.

Before the council voted on the first reading, Fourth Ward representative Andrew Carroll noted that Ordinance 349 was “another good success story” of citizen input leading to change in the community.

“This idea comes from Mark Talbott of High Street,” Carroll said. “He had every one of his neighbors on High Street sign a petition, kind of offering an idea, and we initially started with… a smaller idea which is like, ‘What do we do with High Street?’ and the solution we came up with was, ‘Let’s try to think about, holistically, what can we do to try and make a decision that’s consistent with a whole area, and see if it actually helps reduce the speed.'”

Carroll added that it’s a “compelling reason right now, more than ever” to consider pedestrian safety, stating that, since 2009, the rate of pedestrian death has grown about 80% nationally due to the growth in size for car models over the years. He explained that reports show that, over the past three decades, “our passenger vehicle size has gone four inches wider, 10 inches longer, eight inches taller and 1,000 pounds heavier.”

Carroll also noted that even a speed limit of 25 miles per hour can be very unsafe for pedestrians as – if someone is hit by a vehicle traveling at about 23 miles per hour — that person’s chance of dying is 10%.

Fourth Ward representative Nanci Bross-Fregonara also noted that Elkins Police Chief Travis Bennett placed a speed monitor in the area to help determine the average speed before the possible speed limit change.

Bennett stated that the highest speed recorded on High Street was 41 miles per hour, while the median was 29 miles per hour. High Street’s current speed limit is only 25 miles per hour.

Fifth Ward representative Burley Woods told council that he had been receiving calls asking why the speed limit change was only in the “Historical District” of Elkins. Woods raised questions as to why other districts were not being considered at this time.

“When you’re looking at Center Street or Central Street down here, or you’re looking at River (Street) and you cannot pass two cars going down the street and it’s 25 miles per hour and there’s children playing,” Woods said. “So people saw this and then they’re like, why are we not… why are we just on a one central location instead of… and I can’t say why we’re not doing a test throughout every one of our districts instead of just isolating it to one particular district.”

Bennett responded by saying the decision to focus on the specific area in Fourth Ward was because of the “outcry of the neighborhood” on High Street alongside a petition from “every single person living on (High Street).”

Woods also raised an issue with this being brought to Council by the Rules and Ordinance Committee while the Municipal Properties Committee was working on a traffic study. He stated that the city was doing “double work” when they should be working together to look at all the districts instead of just one at a time.

Bennett and Fregonara noted, however, that the traffic study would probably not touch the residential areas, focusing more on downtown.

Carroll stated that he believed Ordinance 349 is a good first step to see if changing the speed limit in a residential area would make a difference in driver habits, and could possibly lead to more speed limit changes in the other wards.

“I don’t think it’s an ‘either or,’ I think it’s a ‘yes and later,'” Carroll said.