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And slow it goes: A1A speed limit lowered in Shores

STORY BY PIETER VANBENNEKOM (Week of October 10, 2024)

Motorists beware! Without much notice or fanfare, the speed limit on the island’s main thoroughfare, State Road A1A, has been lowered from 45 to 35 miles per hour through the southern part of Indian River Shores.

The new speed limit went into effect at the beginning of the month for the stretch of the road from the 7-Eleven convenience store at the southern limit of town north to the traffic light at Fred Tuerk Drive, where the Shores town hall is located.

The change may catch many island residents, especially the snowbirds who will soon start to return to their homes, unaware. A warning sign about the lower speed limit has been posted at the southern entrance to the town for northbound traffic, but no such warnings have been posted southbound apart from a new 35 mph speed limit sign.  

Mark Shaw, the deputy chief of the Indian River Shores Public Safety Department, told 32963 that, to get used to the new speed limit, the members of his police force will offer motorists a grace period of at least 30 days, “maybe even 60 days,” during which only warnings will be issued.

After that, real speeding tickets will be the order of the day. Beyond the mere cost of the tickets, those citations also entail points against motorists’ licenses counting toward possible suspensions, and they often result in increases in insurance premiums as well.

Shaw said safety considerations were the main reason for the lowering of the speed limit. “I’ve always felt that the speed limit should be 35 miles per hour there, the same as it is when you get further south into the city of Vero Beach,” he said, explaining that in the affected area, “there are a lot more streets emptying into A1A, with the resulting higher volumes of pedestrian and bicycle traffic.”

Shaw also noted that last year, there was an unfortunate pedestrian fatality in the area when a woman in her 80s was hit by a car.

But, Shaw added, the main reason for making the change now is that the Town of Indian River Shores has for two years been petitioning the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) for a pedestrian crosswalk around the CVS drugstore.

In FDOT’s calculations for the need for such a crosswalk, “you get more points if the motor vehicle speed limit is 35 rather than 45,” Shaw said. Apparently FDOT feels that if your speed limit is all the way up to 45 mph and you allow cars to drive that fast, you evidently don’t think the area is very unsafe for pedestrians.

“With the lower speed limit, we finally hope to get that crosswalk approved,” Shaw said.

Speed limits on A1A have been tinkered with rather frequently in recent years. Before the seemingly endless A1A repaving and reconstruction project that added widened bike lanes on both sides of the road of a few years ago, the speed limit going from north to south starting at the Wabasso causeway intersection was 45 miles per hour through the Sea Oaks community. Then the limit actually increased to 50 mph for a few miles until the light at John’s Island, only to go back down again to 45 mph, and then to 35 mph upon entering the city of Vero Beach at the 7-Eleven store.

After the A1A reconstruction project was completed a couple of years ago, the speed limit was a uniform 45 mph from the Wabasso causeway to the city limit with Vero Beach, where the limit went down to 35 mph. Now, that lower speed starts much earlier, at the new traffic light at the Shores town hall.

Whatever the speed limit, the part of SR A1A running through Indian River Shores has long been known as a highway where you just can’t get away with speeding, and that’s not likely to change.

Indian River Shores police constantly patrol the road, both with manned and unmanned vehicles that scare drivers into slowing down as well since no one can be sure if there’s a cop in the car or not.

Police presence along A1A in Indian River Shores has always been more robust than at other stretches of the road in the northern or southern parts of the county that are the responsibility of the Indian River County sheriff’s department, or through the central beach area belonging to the city of Vero Beach.

Some motorists aren’t too enthused about the lower speed limit. On several local social media sites, a number of people called the lower speed limit and the resulting fines a “cash cow for the town.”

Shaw, however, strongly rejected the notion that the town got FDOT to lower the speed limit out of financial considerations.

“I looked it up over the past few years,” said Shaw, “and the fact is that the town gets at most about $3,000 a year as its share of all citations issued in our area. That’s only a fraction of a percentage of our operating budget.”

Shaw explained that the vast majority of revenues from traffic fines goes to the coffers of the state, another portion goes to the clerk of the court to help run the court system, and a tiny sliver of the revenues gets returned to the issuing police force, in this case the Indian River Shores public safety department.