Crawford Road up to 50 mph after county commissioners approval

Cruising down Crawford Road just got a bit more bearable with the Nassau County Board of County Commissioners voting to increase the speed limit at Monday night’s meeting.

What was once an oft-abused 40 mph road will now transition to 50 mph.

After receiving several requests to evaluate Crawford Road’s speed limit, the engineering services department conducted a speed study. The data collected by the county was reviewed by a roadway design engineer with the Jacksonville-based consultants EltonAlan.

The speed analysis concluded that the 85th percentile speed on Crawford Road was 58 mph, a far cry from the 40 mph signs currently posted there. Consultants agreed with county staff to recommend the commissioners approve a speed limit increase to 50 mph.

County Engineer Robert Companion elaborated that the commissioners themselves do not choose the speed limit – the county is beholden to rules laid out in the Florida Department of Transportation’s Green Book, a collection of guidelines and statutes for assigning speed limits.

“There’s few criteria, but the two major ones are they follow the 85th percentile rule, which means they study how fast the vehicles travel on a given roadway, and it’s believed that psychologically 85th percentile of motorists will travel at a reasonable speed given the roadway they are traveling on,” Companion said.

He elaborated that the other predominant factor is design speed, which staff has noted is 50 mph for Crawford Road.

“If the roadway was designed with the maximum speed in mind, you can never set the speed limit higher than that,” Companion said.

County staff also recommended posting new speed limit signs after installing “stop ahead” and stop signs along Crawford Road and County Road 2 at intersections with County Road 121. Commissioners were assured the economic impact of their approval would be minimal with funding coming from the road department sign materials pot.

With a 5-0 vote, commissioners voted to approve the speed limit change from 40 to 50 mph; however, the increase won’t go into effect until the new signs have been erected.

mmahoney@fbnewsleader.com