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Last week, Oregon advocates applauded as the Speed Reduction Bill passed the Oregon Senate by an overwhelming margin. If signed into law, the bill will give cities the authority to lower the speed limit by five miles per hour on residential streets, which is currently 30 or 25 miles per hour.

So what’s the impact of a mere five miles per hour? According to Federal Highway Administration studies, a pedestrian hit by a vehicle traveling at 30 mph has a 40 percent chance of being killed; when the car is going 20 mph that chance plunges to a 5 percent fatality rate. “We can substantially reduce the likelihood of fatalities in our streets by having this important piece of legislature in place,” Tom Miller, the director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), said in his February testimony in support of the bill.

Initially introduced by Representative Ben Cannon, the bill is designed to support Portland’s efforts to build a network of neighborhood greenways as alternatives to higher-speed roads. Should the bill pass, it doesn’t mean that cities can arbitrarily reduce the speed limit of any street by five miles. The road must meet the following criteria before city transportation departments can request the change:

• It must have 2,000 or fewer vehicle trips per day with 85 percent already traveling at 30 mph or less.
• It must already have signage, markings, or infrastructure indicating the presence of people biking and walking.

Rob Sadowsky, Executive Director of the Portland-based Bicycle Transportation Alliance, said the passage of this bill would make it safer and easier for Oregon residents to travel between neighborhoods. “We’ve just gained a tool that makes [neighborhood greenways] great for all users of the road and especially for neighbors who are fighting for lower speeds on their streets,” Sadowsky said. “We have neighborhood groups who desperately want to lower their speed limits on blocks to 20mph.”

The bill initially passed the House by a wide margin in March, and had been working its way through the Senate. Lawmakers feared the term “neighborhood greenway” was too Portland-centric as the bill was to apply to the entire state. The term was since removed from the bill, which will now head back to the House for a concurrence vote before landing on the Governor’s desk for signing.

Track the progress of the bill here.