Thursday, January 19, 2006

Broadmoor traffic project a neighborhood/city partnership

QUESTION: On Third Street between Elm and Polo Drive in the Broadmoor area, the city road crews have installed two temporary-appearing islands. Also a 20 mph speed bump has appeared on the 25 mph street. The city worker informed me that they would become permanent in the future. Other such additions are on Mesa Street. I question these actions. Why disturb and limit traffic on the beautiful residential street? Also, where is the money coming from?
- Jack B.

ANSWER: This was done as part of what is called the city’s traffic-calming program and involves neighborhoods that are experiencing traffic problems.

According to Kristin Bennett, senior transportation planner for the city, the neighborhood submitted an application to the city’s neighborhood traffic management program accompanied by the required signed petition from at least half of the residents affected.

The Third Street and Mesa Avenue neighborhood was experiencing a number of 36+ mph speeders through their 25 mph area and a “tremendous” increase in traffic cutting through because of nearby construction.

Bennett says that following an evaluation of the problems, the department worked with the neighbors and together they developed a plan with set goals.

Temporary measures include medians, speed humps, a speed table (a larger version of a speed hump that is flat on top) and other steps meant to effectively narrow the driving lanes on the street and slow people down, Bennett says. These are being tested, including having the fire department drive through to evaluate for safety in case of an emergency. The city and the neighbors will meet again to decide which permanent steps will be taken.

Funding comes from the fines paid by drivers caught in the “Citywide 25” program targeting speeders in residential areas. In addition, there is money from SCIP, the voter-approved issue which raised taxes to fund improvements to the city’s infrastructure. There are approximately a dozen traffic-calming programs under way across the city.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

If they are doing this to the Broadmoor neighborhood, are they doing this to other parts of the city? The reason I ask is there are traffic roundabouts popping up on North Arcadia Street and North Prospect Street

6:55 PM, January 19, 2006  
Blogger Linda Navarro said...

There are at least a dozen of these projects in the city and others are evaluated as they are requested.

11:24 AM, January 20, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

“traffic calming”, more accurately known as “traffic obstruction”, is a joke, as is the ridiculous 25MPH across-the-board income-gathering neighborhood speed limit. Speed bumps do nothing more than make life miserable for drivers who live in the area and aggravate drivers of emergency vehicles, trash trucks, delivery trucks, etc. If the so-called traffic planners would fix the existing main roads, add turn lanes and turn arrows where needed, synchronize the traffic lights, and complete the endless construction in a timelier manner, there wouldn’t be as many people taking shortcuts through neighborhoods, and “traffic calming” would not even be an issue in the first place.

11:31 AM, January 26, 2006  

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