Everett lowers speed limits on two streets

Published 1:30 am Monday, September 1, 2025

EVERETT — Two streets in Everett will see lower speed limits after the City Council approved the change at a council meeting on Wednesday.

A section of Holly Drive between 100th Street SW and Evergreen Way will drop from 30 miles per hour to 25. A section of 16th Street between Grand Avenue and East Marine View Drive will change from 30 to 25.

Those decreases came from a new approach to setting speed limits the city developed as part of its Vision Zero plan to eliminate all traffic and pedestrian fatalities on its streets, city traffic engineer Corey Hert said.

“This council is pretty united when it comes to acknowledging the need to do something with the speed in our streets,” Council President Don Schwab said Wednesday.

The work with the Vision Zero plan created a formula to determine new speed limits, based on the size and usage of roads and the surrounding areas they’re located in. Engineers and police then review the suggested speed limits and validate that the speeds are appropriate.

State law requires changes in speed limits to undergo traffic and engineering investigations, Hert said.

The two speed limit changes are the first part of what is expected to be a massive evaluation of every street in Everett, paid for mostly by a federal grant. That process, known as a speed management plan, will evaluate 77 arterials and collectors while weighing other options like a 20-mile-per-hour residential street speed limit and new possibilities for 10-mile-per-hour shared streets that prioritize cyclists and pedestrians, Hert said at Wednesday’s meeting.

Speed limits aren’t the only way to curb dangerous driving. Other important factors are road design and enforcement by police. Hert also said many drivers have misconceptions about laws regarding speed limits, assuming they’re allowed to drive faster than actually permitted.

“There’s a prevalent thought amongst drivers that the speed limit is not the speed limit, that officers feel it’s ‘five you’re fine, 10 you’re mine,’” Hert said. (In Washington, if you drive one mile per hour over the limit, you can be pulled over.)

The speed management plan is separate from the city’s Vision Zero plan. City staff expect to release a draft of the Vision Zero plan in the coming weeks.

“Going forward, it’s really going to be a public education campaign that it’s not okay to speed in Everett anymore,” Hert said.

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.