My neighborhood listserv revved up with comments the other day. It seems that a speeding car on our main two-lane road — posted speed limit 30 mph — flew past a school bus that was stopped to pick up children, even though the latter had its red lights flashing and stop signs extended.
Fortunately, no one was injured, but clearly anyone crossing the street could have been hurt or killed by this vehicular terrorist. A concerned parent on the scene followed up with a terse “slow-down” email. A cascade of suggestions, condemnations and frustration followed. Here’s a brief sample:
Let’s add stop signs.
Let’s all serve as “pace” cars and drive the speed limit, or slower, to discourage cut-through drivers.
Let’s re-employ the electronic roadside radar monitor (“Your speed is ...”) we used last year.
Let’s have all the neighbors double-park on the street on select days.
Let’s have an “occupy” moment and stage a sit-in for safety.
The street in question, the residential stretch of Howell Mill Road north of Collier Road in Atlanta, is frequently used by emergency response vehicles and is not eligible for speed humps. Bicycle lanes already have been added. But beyond the noisy “rumble strips” that no one really wants in front of their house, what else can neighborhoods do?
There are no easy answers. Even speed humps, the obvious traffic-calming device in many neighborhoods, are “extremely polarizing” with residents, says Kim Conroy, director of the Gwinnett County Department of Transportation. Requests for them have tailed off in the last decade, he said, with Gwinnett now installing them on approximately a half-dozen streets each year. Changing demographics have influenced the slowdown. With the recession, more people are staying in one place and already have them (or don’t want them).
The “repopulation” of intown Atlanta neighborhoods, and the gentrifying of semi-commercial districts, adds to speeding problems, says George Louth, who served for years with the Metro Atlanta Traffic Enforcement Network. He knows Howell Mill Road well, but he could be describing many Atlanta region streets when he says: “It’s a main, mixed-use roadway with a combination of commercial traffic, commuter traffic, destination traffic and residential, so it’s a nightmare,” he says. “I wouldn’t even want to figure it out.”
Richard Mendoza, commissioner of Atlanta’s Department of Public Works, points to a larger solution. His department is trying to relieve congestion on local roads by optimizing traffic flow on major roads. Signal-light synchronization is one plan. Of the 960 signal-light intersections in the city, Mendoza says about 300 have been modernized with new hardware and software so they can be controlled remotely.
“We’d like to get it all done within a two- to three-year time frame,” he says. “We’re doing a little bit every year.”
Still, it’s an expensive proposition. Mendoza estimated that the city needs $18 million to $20 million to complete the project. Like many roadway improvements these days, it could come down to the 2010 Transportation Investment Act. If the referendum for a one-cent tax for transportation improvements is passed by voters in July, the signal light project could be one of the beneficiaries.
“That would go a long ways toward alleviating a lot of congestion on our local roads,” he adds, “which would in turn eliminate some cut-throughs in our neighborhoods.”
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