The speed limit through downtown Boulder is 25 mph. Not all drivers appear to know that.
A group of private citizens, concerned about speeding in Boulder, is organizing to place additional traffic control mechanisms along Main Street. The group has asked the City Council to add electronic radar signage beneath existing speed limit signs. It hopes the signage will encourage slower driving, particularly among commercial vehicles passing through Boulder.
“If you’re a parent helping your child cross the street, this is really important to you,” said Boulder resident and group organizer Connie Grenz. “If you’re a business on Main Street, and people aren’t slowing down enough to so much as notice you, this is really important to you.”
While the issue has already been brought before the City Council twice, there are significant hurdles to actualizing the project. Ward-2 City Councilman Bear Taylor, who is also the county’s road and bridge supervisor, said the city will require a formal proposal from the citizen group in order to engage the Montana Department of Transportation, which must approve any such project.
“We call it Main Street, but that’s really just our name for it,” Taylor said. “It’s MT-69. Having a state highway run through town isn’t uncommon in Montana, but the work we do on the road falls under state statute. With a project like this, there is a significant amount of red tape involved. It’s not a quick fix.”
Funding will also have to be sourced independently of city government, with each radar system costing as much as six thousand dollars, Taylor says. The group is hoping to secure funding through private donations, grants, and public fundraising events.
The project is, in other words, not as simple as it sounds. The citizens and Taylor agree that the volume of vehicles passing through the city has gradually increased over the past few years — although that hasn’t been documented — and that a radar system could help mitigate changing traffic patterns.
But while municipalities enjoy relative freedom in determining local speed limits, MT-69 and other state highways falls under the jurisdiction of the Montana Department of Transportation. This greatly hinders the city government’s ability to make direct changes to the road, and necessarily involves the state government in the citizen group’s effort to establish new radar systems. State policy also dictates new building and sidewalk placements, which further complicates potential interventions.
State highway officials conduct official speed studies to determine posted limits, where data is collected to determine the speed at which 85% of drivers drive at or below in ideal conditions. This 85th percentile is seen as a rational starting point for setting an appropriate speed limit, and is used by state departments of transportation nationally to inform policy.
The last such study conducted on MT-69 was in 2022, on a length of road feeding to Whitehall where the speed limit transitions from 70mph to 45mph. Drivers were measured traveling, on average, 7 mph over the posted limit as they entered Whitehall. Though no official speed study has been conducted, Boulder residents believe speeding on Main Street exceeds that measured in Whitehall.
“No speed or quantity studies have been done, but the semis tend to come in pretty fast. Commercial vehicles, and particularly stock trucks, try to gain or maintain speed through town in order to make it up the hill,” said group member Mechele Anderson. “The county road department, or the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, may have a temporary stand alone radar sign we could access. But we’re trying to move beyond the City Council.”
Once the group has drafted an official proposal and fundraising efforts commence, it hopes to complete the project and see the radar placed in the coming year.
