The city's public works department works on a new ordinance every year in the fall

FRESNO, California (KSEE) — Fresno drivers will have to double check their speed around town, with 40 new or reduced speed zones in the city.

With no debate, Fresno City Council approved the city’s latest speed zone ordinance Thursday morning at city hall. The ordinance is done yearly, according to Jill Gormley, the city’s Traffic Operations and Planning Manager.

“We look at between 200-300, half-mile roadway segments,” she said.

The zones with reduced speed limits are lowered anywhere from 5 to 15 miles per hour. The stretch of Palm Avenue north of Herndon Avenue, for example, was reduced from 45 mph to 40 mph.

Besides reducing speed limits, the ordinance also created new speed zones, like the new 25 mph one on Barton Avenue south of Ashlan Avenue.

After city council passed it, the public works department posted up the new speed limit signage fast.

Gormley said to make the changes, she and her staff work off how fast drivers are going.

“We’re actually out there with radar speed guns and surveying the speed the drivers are driving. In essence, the drivers are dictating the speed limit by how they’re driving,” she said.

Once the ordinance is passed, the public works department starts to work on next year’s ordinance.

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