Transportation

Minneapolis, St. Paul lower speed limits on residential streets

A 20mph speed limit sign.
A new speed limit sign declaring the citywide speed limit of 20 mph is posted along Lake Street in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Evan Frost | MPR News

The cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have both lowered speed limits on residential streets.

Unless otherwise posted, the speed limit on residential streets will be 20 mph. Many larger city-owned arterial streets will have 25 mph or 30 mph speed limits.

Minneapolis completed the process of installing 1,400 new speed limit signs last week.

Traffic operations engineer Steve Mosing said the city took the approach of installing what they call gateway signs along the city limits, alerting drivers of the new speed limits — rather than putting speed limit signs on every residential street.

"Unless you see a sign that says otherwise, your speed limit should be 20 miles per hour," he said.

In St. Paul, traffic engineer Randy Newton said the city has installed more than 700 signs with another 160 expected to be in place by early next year. Like Minneapolis, Newton said they're putting signs with the new speed limits in highly visible areas rather than on every residential street.

The goal of the lower speed limits in both cities is to reduce crashes, and prevent injuries and deaths. The lower speed limits do not affect traffic on county and state highways.

Find more information on St. Paul’s speed limit changes here.

Find more information on Minneapolis’ speed limit changes here.