Photo by Edward Hoover

Speed limits on two area roads are going up. Mayor Vince Gray has ordered that the speed limit on Benning Road NE between Oklahoma Avenue and Kenilworth Avenue increase from 30 to 35 miles an hour, while the speed limit for D.C. 295 from Eastern Avenue to near the Wilson Bridge will rise from 45 to 50 miles an hour.

“These are roadways where we have previously studied the speed limits and can make changes immediately without significantly impacting safety,” said Gray in a press release. “We want drivers to respect our traffic laws, and in return we have to have realistic expectations of them that match the physical environment, while continuing to protect pedestrians and cyclists.”

Both are routes used heavily by commuters, and speed cameras on both have provoked howls of complaints from drivers who say that the posted speed limits are too low for the roads they are on. In fiscal year 2012, two cameras on 295 produced 168,630 tickets, or 23 percent of all speed camera tickets handed out that year. Two Benning Road cameras—one on an eastbound stretch, the other on a westbound segment—produced 16,447 tickets.

There’s some truth to the argument that the speed limits on that segment of Benning Road—where it crosses the Anacostia River—are set too low. A 2006 speed study found that the 85th percentile speed—the speed at which or below 85 percent of motorists will drive—on the segment was 41 mph, while in 2010 it dropped to 36. According to traffic engineers, that finding suggests that the speed limit should have been set at 35 mph. (A similar argument has been made for Porter Street NW.)

A larger-scale reassessment of speed limits across D.C. may be in the offing next year. A D.C. Council bill up for consideration tomorrow would mandate a year-long study of speed limits across the city, and Gray hinted that changes to Benning Road and 295 may only be the first of many to come to area roads. Gray recently used emergency regulations to drop some speed camera fines, and the council is also considering a bill that would do so.