In April 2026, Emeryville City Council adopted an ordinance to reduce speed limits citywide, with blanket 15 miles per hour signage for every bicycle boulevard segment.
The change was made possible thanks to Laura Friedman’s Assembly Bill 43 that was adopted as state law in 2021.
This bill indicated that speed limits on local roads can be set as low as 15 mph by a city council resolution, with no speed survey or other justification required.
“Local road” is a technical term, which usually refers to narrow and often low-traffic residential streets, as opposed to wider or faster “arterial” or “collector” streets.
All roads statewide are assigned a classification, as shown on this interactive map.
Any of the corridors shown on this map in grey are local roads, and eligible for speed limits as low as 15 mph.
How Did Emeryville Accomplish This?
As far as we know, Emeryville is the first city in California to take advantage of this allowance through Assembly Bill 43, for all their bike boulevards. But this same thing is available to every jurisdiction in the state.
It is not well known, however, and even Emeryville staff weren’t familiar with the opportunity at first.
When their citywide speed limits item was introduced in February 2026, there were numerous reductions proposed but not 15 mph limits on every bike boulevard segment.
We reached out to our partners at the UC Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC), who confirmed that lower speed limits were allowed.
They also provided a handy flow chart (available here) to navigate multiple state speed limit bills and aid staff in the decision-making process.
As such we submitted comments to Emeryville staff and electeds about the bike boulevard opportunities, and we were thrilled that when the item came back to city council in March the 15 mph speed limits were included!
(excerpt from our comment letter)
What's Next?
The Emeryville speed limit updates include posted signs and markings, to be implemented a month after the City Council approval (probably by the time you’re reading this!).
Studies on speed limit changes have shown that they help reduce driver speeds, even with no other changes.
But when accompanied by robust traffic calming along an entire corridor, the driver speed reductions are more significant and consistent.
Emeryville has already started implementing physical traffic calming on some bike boulevards, and we look forward to working with them to spread this all across town.
If you are interested in petitioning for a similar effort in your California jurisdiction, please share this blog post and linked resources with city staff and elected officials.
If you have questions or would like to coordinate, you can reach our advocacy staff through our online form at BikeEastBay.org/Contact, selecting the “Infrastructure & Advocacy” drop-down category.
