INC NEWS - excessive speeds on urban streets

[RW Pickle]

After three+ years of having the petitions in, the City has finally gotten
around to laying out our neighborhood for speed humps. Because every
street they are planned for is within 1,000 of the Park, alot of the
criteria necessary for getting them is waived. This means that the street
speed or traffic count didn't have to be whatever it needs to be in order
to get them (because of the distance relative to the Park). This is good
if you want speed humps and have a park nearby. It waives alot of the
otherwise manditory criteria for getting them.

So with speed humps on the way, this neighborhood began to reconsider
them. The big event that has led to this (on our side of Forest Hills at
least, was the closing of the Apex Street Bridge permanently to vehicle
traffic; no more 400 cars a day) reconsideration has also led us away from
the speed humps. But in looking at all of this again, we were able to get
some new information that verified what we all thought.

People speed regularly! The street I live on has the nickname of the
"dragstrip" because it is straight, flat, and bounded on one side by the
Park. So cars tend to fly down it. In the recent measurement of traffic
and speed, the average was 39.1 mph in this 25 mph zone. So someone was
going pretty fast to get the average 14+ mph over the speed limit. We
found that on ALL the streets here, the average speed was faster than the
speed limit with the smallest amout being 29.1 mph on one of the
short-curvey streets. So speeding is the norm it would seem. And I think
we're content to leaving it the way it is now; without speed humps.
Because the drawbacks for having them seem to out weigh the need for them.
It's basically our neighbors and we think we can shame them into slowing
down.

Randy Pickle