Rutland Town agrees to work with Mendon on lowering Route 4 speed limit to 40 mph

The Rutland Town Selectboard voted to send a representative to work with the Town of Mendon on a joint application to the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) asking that the posted speed limit on a roughly 1.25‑mile stretch of U.S. Route 4 be lowered from 45 to 40 miles per hour.

Mendon officials presented results of a scoping study and crash mapping showing a concentration of crashes in a short commercial stretch of Route 4; Mendon representatives said a lower speed limit, combined with traffic‑calming engineering, would improve pedestrian safety and business access. “We just we think that taking an extra 24 seconds to drive through our part of Route 4 is worth it if we can get down to 40 miles an hour,” Megan Smith, chair of the Mendon Selectboard, told Rutland Town officials.

Why it matters: The two towns share a corridor that Mendon says has a higher-than-average crash rate in the study period. Mendon received a VTrans scoping grant and has been developing pedestrian and traffic‑calming proposals; town officials said a coordinated application that includes Rutland Town would strengthen the case to VTrans for a speed change and associated striping/merge‑lane adjustments.

Details: Mendon’s engineering report recommended a mix of measures — restriping, shortening merge lanes, and targeted speed reduction within the village/commercial cluster — rather than only posting a lower limit across the entire six‑mile Mendon section. Mendon officials said the change they seek would cover the mile‑and‑a‑quarter from approximately the Home Depot area through the small downtown stretch toward Town Line Road and would leave higher posted speeds further up the mountain where the route becomes more rural.

Rutland Town moved and seconded a motion to designate Selectboard member Joe DiNardo to work with Mendon’s committee on the joint application. The board carried the motion on a voice vote; town officials did not record individual vote names in the transcript.

Board context and next steps: Mendon officials said VTrans performs speed and crash studies as part of evaluating such requests and that the repaving/restriping schedule (currently showing engineering work in 2028 with paving in 2029 for parts of the corridor) makes early coordination useful. Rutland Town said it would designate a contact to work with Mendon and the regional planner on the application. No formal change to posted speeds has been made; any change requires VTrans review and approval.

Public comment and local reaction: Selectboard members and the town police chief acknowledged local concerns about vehicles entering Rutland Town at highway speeds and the difficulty drivers have slowing before village centers and turns. Town members urged coordination on engineering fixes such as left‑turn lanes and merge‑lane length, not only signage.

Ending: Rutland Town will name a liaison to the Mendon application and begin coordination; any formal speed limit change would be decided by VTrans after review of crash, speed and engineering data included in the joint application.