The Kingston Common Council’s Public Safety and General Government Committee has unanimously approved a plan by Mayor Steve Noble to lower the speed limit from 30 to 25 mph on virtually all city streets. The full council will vote on the plan when it convenes next month.

At the committee meeting on Wednesday, City Engineer John Schultheis shared the proposal with lawmakers. It calls for lowering the speed limit citywide except for Abeel Street from Wilbur Avenue to the city line, the Boulevard from Golden Hill Drive to the city line and Flatbush Avenue from East Chester Street to the city line. Portions of Route 9W, Colonel Chandler Drive and the Wurts Street Bridge will also be exempt because they are controlled by the state Department of Transportation. A 15-mph speed limit will remain in effect in the city’s school zones. Schultheis said the exemption for Boulevard, Flatbush Avenue and Abeel Street reflected those streets “rural character” with no curbs or sidewalks and few intersections.

“One thing we don’t want to do is set an inappropriate speed limit that feels out of touch to what people expect to drive,” said Schultheis.

Noble and Public Safety Committee Chair and council Majority Leader Rennie Scott-Childress have lobbied for a lower speed limit for years but were thwarted in the effort until a new state law passed earlier this year cleared the way for the plan. In a letter to the council, Noble wrote that the lower speed limit would enhance pedestrian safety on the streets of Kingston. Noble cited a study by the Governors Highway Safety Association that showed lowering the speed limit to 25 mph caused a nearly 30 percent drop in vehicles traveling over 33 mph, a speed at which the probability of a pedestrian struck by a car suffering serious injury increases significantly.

The proposed lower speed limit is the latest in a series of measures taken by the Noble administration to enhance bike and pedestrian safety in the city and move Kingston away from its mid-20th-century car-centric streetscape. New standards adopted from the state DOT require street reconstruction projects to place cyclists and pedestrians on an equal footing with drivers while the city has spent millions in recent years expanding sidewalks, improving crosswalks, building bike lanes and introducing more amenities for users of non-motorized transportation.