Post Falls reviews speed and parking data on Cecil Road and Spokane Street; staff recommend adjustments

City staff told the Post Falls City Council on Dec. 3 they had completed traffic studies following resident complaints about speeding and noise on Cecil Road, and they reported follow-up analysis and recommended operational adjustments for Spokane Street.

Police and engineering staff presented automated speed data and enforcement statistics for Cecil Road between Pole Line and Prairie avenues. The automated three-day speed study found a disparity between northbound and southbound traffic: northbound traffic showed a medium enforcement rating (about 28% over the posted 30 mph limit) while southbound traffic showed a higher rate (about 55% over the limit) and recorded speeds up to 61 mph. The study measured an 85th-percentile speed near 38 mph and a pace speed of 36 mph, figures engineers use when recommending posted limits.

Robert Paul, City Engineer, said the 85th-percentile and pace-speed results support increasing the posted speed limit to 35 mph on the evaluated segment. He noted that Federal Highway Administration guidance and local engineering judgment generally use the 85th percentile as the basis for setting speed limits, and that raising a posted limit to align with observed driving speeds often influences driver behavior less than other engineering measures. Staff also reported limited collision history on the evaluated Cecil segment (five collisions between Hope and Bogie since Feb. 2019), and emphasized that the roundabout at Pole Line reduced collision frequency on Pole Line from about 8.3 per year to 1.3 per year after installation.

Chief McLean (Police) and engineering staff described enforcement emphasis on Pole Line and school zones. From Sept. 3 to Nov. 13, enforcement yielded 97 warnings and 100 traffic citations on Pole Line, with roughly 47% of violations tied to school-zone speeding. For Cecil Road specifically, staff issued 11 warnings during an earlier enforcement period.

On Spokane Street, staff outlined a long-running parking and classification issue. Spokane Street north of Prairie was built and classified inconsistently: the roadway has a 40-foot width and was intended as a three-lane collector with bike lanes but functions more like a local/minor-collector neighborhood street with on-street parking. Staff recommended enforcing existing no-parking zones on the east side of Spokane Street while allowing parking on the west side adjacent to an apartment complex to add about 10 legal spaces. The recommendation includes striping the northern segment (a project estimated at about $7,000 per year if performed annually) and posting speed limits on segments currently unmarked; staff said the northern segment had an 85th-percentile speed of about 28 mph and a pace speed of 24 mph, which they view as acceptable.

Councilors asked about the trade-offs of parking, striping and lane configuration. Staff said on-street parking tends to lower vehicle speeds and that removing parking could raise speeds by several miles per hour in some settings, though national studies show posted speed changes often shift driver behavior only modestly. Engineering staff also noted that smart-code parking levels at the adjacent Crown Point development contributed to the on-street parking demand and that code changes since that development have increased minimum off-street parking requirements for future projects.

No immediate ordinance changes were enacted at the meeting. Staff said they will follow up with additional striping, targeted enforcement, potential speed limit postings and outreach to the resident who originally raised the Cecil Road complaint.