Not so fast. That’s what elected officials and Mount Vernon residents told the Virginia Department of Transportation, which planned to lower the speed limit on a congested stretch Richmond Highway from 45 to 35 miles an hour. Several legislators said they hadn’t been informed of the plan, and that they read about new speed-limit signs being installed in the Mount Vernon Gazette.

"The least they could have done was informed the local elected officials of what they were going to do so we knew what was happening when we started getting angry phone calls about this," said state Sen. Toddy Puller (D-36). "That’s just common courtesy."

The press coverage led to several community meetings in which residents voiced their overwhelming opposition to the reduced speed limits. Mounting opposition led to a formal letter opposing the new speed limits Puller wrote along with Del. Kristen Amundson (D-44) and Del. Mark Sickles (D-43) to Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer. Last week, Homer relented in the face of sustained opposition — ending the yearlong drama.

"We understand that many residents, community associations, and the local law enforcement agency staff are opposed to this change," wrote Homer in a response dated June 17. "Based on this and your recommendations … we do not plan to proceed with the change to the speed limit on the Route One corridor at this time."

THE STORY OF HOW the speed limit change was defeated shows the power of community resistance in the face of bureaucracy. The drama began when VDOT conducted a 2005 "safety study" that issued 400 recommendations for improved safety in the Route One corridor. Because the stretch between the Capital Beltway and Fort Belvior had a higher collision rate than any other corridor in the commonwealth, the study recommended that its speed limit be changed from 45 miles an hour to 35 miles an hour.

"Traffic accidents have decreased in recent years, which is not attributable to a reduction in the speed limit," wrote Fairfax County Supervisors Gerald Hyland and Jeffrey McKay in a joint board matter dated February 2008. "An analysis of accidents on Richmond Highway done by the Fairfax County Police Department shows the primary cause of crashes are due to failures to yield the right of way followed by a failure to maintain proper control of the vehicle."

Nevertheless, VDOT decided to move foreword with its recommendation to lower the speed limit even though officials had not consulted with local elected officials, civic groups or community residents. For many in Mount Vernon, this development was interpreted as an attempt on the part of VDOT to abrogate its responsibility to engineer and invest in the infrastructure improvements necessary to fix Richmond Highway.

"I'm not going to let VDOT wash their hands of making the necessary improvements to Route One by making a few sign changes," said McKay in a January 2009 interview. "They haven't made the necessary contacts with all the interested parties."

BUT TRANSPORTATION officials held their ground, defending the change as necessary to improve public safety. In late January, District Administrator Morteza Salehi sent a letter to Hyland and McKay citing an analysis that showed a nine-mile stretch of Richmond Highway from Beltway to Belvoir experienced an average of 95 injury or fatal crashes per mile during a recent three-year period. Lowering the speed limit, he said, was a responsible reaction to the analysis.

"While we can not guarantee that reducing the speed limit would solve all the operational and safety issues, it is the professional opinion of our traffic engineering staff and consultants, based on available research, a lower speed limit will result in a more orderly flow of traffic," wrote Salehi.

Meanwhile, opposition to the change continued to mount. When the General Assembly session ended, Puller summoned VDOT officials and several elected leaders to her house to determine the best course of action. The politicians were adamant that if VDOT insisted on moving forward with the speed-limit change, the department must conduct public meetings to hear from community members. The outreach effort culminated in a May 28 meeting at the Mount Vernon Governmental Center in which opposition was virtually unanimous.

"Things started to change when there was pushback from the community," said Hyland. "The bottom line is that speed is not the predominant factor is causing those accidents."

WHEN THE COMMUNITY was allowed to provide input, speaker after speaker opposed the plan. Many said congestion on this stretch of the highway was so bad that that motorists couldn’t even speed if they wanted to. One study showed that the average speed for the area in question was 37 miles an hour. When the Mount Vernon police captain in charge of patrolling Richmond Highway publicly opposed the planned speed-limit change, momentum began moving against VDOT.

"I would have been willing to consider this," said Sickles. "But VDOT was never able to produce convincing evidence that this would help anything."