Jamestown City Council Public Works Committee meeting (January 12, 2026)
Jamestown City Council members want to look at making areas around schools and city parks more safe.
Public Works Committee Chair Dan Gonzalez brought up the topic following a pedestrian death near Lillian Dickson Park this past weekend, “It is our responsibility to, you know, keep certain things clear and free for people, specially the fact that we have a lot of pedestrian traffic. The fact that this school district is a walking district. We don’t have busses. These kids are walking, so that means they are at risk. So, I don’t know if it sounds good to you guys, but I would like to find a way to reduce the speed limit from 20 (miles per hour). I would like to get it down to 10 around schools and parks. Military bases, that’s how we do it. That’s how we were able to mitigate pedestrians being hit by vehicles. I don’t know if we could go down to 10, maybe 15.”
Gonzalez said he’d like to extend the school zone for Washington Middle School and Love Elementary School on Buffalo Street, but Interim Public Works Director Mark Roetzer said that idea had been researched before and New York State won’t allow a zone that large.
Roetzer added that some municipalities have lowered the overall speed limit to 25 miles per hour, but he’d have to research to see if municipalities could go lower for speed limits in certain zones.
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