What is AB43?
Understanding AB 43:
California’s Law Allowing Local Governments to Lower Speed Limits
Safe Routes to Downtown Los Altos works to encourage safe and accessible multimodal access to Downtown Los Altos. When we learned about AB 43, we were eager to understand how it might apply to areas in and around Downtown Los Altos. While we found great resources online, like the California Safe Speeds Toolkit from UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC), we wanted to better understand the origin and purpose of AB 43 and how other Bay Area governments were planning to use the new law. This paper is a summary of our learnings and the resources we found most useful in understanding AB 43. We hope that other community leaders can use it as a resource for learning about AB 43’s potential impact on their own community.
Safe Routes to Downtown Los Altos encourages the city to consider ways to reduce speed limits in and around downtown, on high volume Safe Routes to Schools, and near parks and other areas with pedestrian foot traffic and bicycle routes. Specific immediate actions that we have urged the city to take under AB43:
Reduce the speed by at least 5mph to 20mph on State Street, Main Street, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and Edith in downtown Los Altos as allowed under UCB Toolkit #4. Business Activity Districts.
Reduce the speed limit on San Antonio Rd by at least 5 mph between Foothill Expressway and Almond Avenue as allowed under UCB Toolkit #6. Safety Corridor.
Traffic calming measures that result in reduced speeds should be a first line approach for all residential streets with specific focus on high volume pedestrian and bicycle routes, Safe Routes to Schools, and retail areas such as downtown, Loyola Corners, Rancho, etc.