County updates speed limit ordinance
GOSHEN — Two roads near Dunlap and Goshen will have a posted speed limit after a vote by county officials Monday.
The Elkhart County Board of Commissioners voted to set speed limits on the two unposted roads outside city limits. Charlie McKenzie, engineer with the Elkhart County Highway Department, described the changes as an amendment to the blanket ordinance which controls speed limits across the county.
He said studies were conducted which backed up requests to consider adjusting speeds on the two roads.
“There were two studies that we completed in the past handful of months, that were a request either from the commissioners’ office or the public, that resulted in us identifying that it warranted a speed limit change,” McKenzie said. “We’ve completed an engineering study, a traffic county, speed analysis, reviewed all the crashes.”
The first recommendation was to set a 50 mph limit on C.R. 29 between C.R. 34 and S.R. 4, east of Goshen. Dozens of homes line the segment of road, which is about four-fifths of a mile long.
The road has no posted speed limit but by statute is limited to 55 mph, according to McKenzie.
The other recommendation was to set a 40 mph limit on C.R. 111, between C.R. 20 and C.R. 22, just west of the Concord Mall. The road, also called Clayton Avenue, is an unposted 55 mph zone as well.
“It curves into C.R. 22, there’s an intersection that is really a banked curve into C.R. 22. All of C.R. 22 is posted at 40 mph,” McKenzie said. “Not only that, but the speed analysis and engineering study that we completed on C.R. 111 warrants a 40 mph speed limit as well, so we’d just be continuing that all the way to C.R. 20.”
A third amendment to the blanket speed regulation reflects that the county doesn’t have jurisdiction any longer over the roads in areas that were annexed by the town of Bristol.
