Fayetteville considering new approach to speed reduction in neighborhoods

The Fayetteville Transportation Committee of the City Council approved a policy to consider recorded speeds and number of cars going through neighborhoods to prioritize traffic calming requests. One of the street for consideration is East Oaks Drive.Check out nwaonline.com/201130Daily/ for todayÕs photo gallery. 
(NW Democrat-Gazette/Spencer Tirey)
The Fayetteville Transportation Committee of the City Council approved a policy to consider recorded speeds and number of cars going through neighborhoods to prioritize traffic calming requests. One of the street for consideration is East Oaks Drive.Check out nwaonline.com/201130Daily/ for todayÕs photo gallery. (NW Democrat-Gazette/Spencer Tirey)

FAYETTEVILLE -- Residents wanting the city to slow cars in their neighborhoods could see planters, speed cushions, narrower lanes or other street features next year.

The Transportation Committee, comprised of half the City Council, has forwarded to the full council a policy on handling requests for traffic-calming measures.

City officials routinely get complaints from residents about drivers going too fast in their neighborhoods. The policy will use data and a points system to prioritize requests and leave it up to neighborhoods to initiate and review a project, City Engineer Chris Brown said.

Data used to score requests include speed and number of cars per day, yearly accidents, proximity to schools and whether the streets have sidewalks. The city has been collecting that kind of information in neighborhoods for about a decade, so there's already a list of some 200 requests that have a score, Brown said. The city has an informal policy it's been using since 2003 to prioritize traffic-calming requests, but the thresholds are too high, he said.

The new policy would use the same data, but different formulas, Brown said.

"It was always a case of our policy says it's not a problem, but our neighborhoods say it is, so which one is the truth?" he said.

Traffic calming measures include road features other than speed bumps and speed tables, Brown said. Concrete speed bumps and tables can damage fire trucks, so the city usually opts for an alternative, he said.

Examples may include speed cushions, rather than speed bumps, Brown said. Speed cushions are prefabricated, usually made of hard rubber, with gaps widely spaced apart so the wheels of fire trucks can pass through. Cars still have to run over them.

Planters also are an option, Brown said. They're relatively cheap and easy to install, he said. Planters create narrow points in a traffic lane that cars have to go around, slowing them in the process. They essentially act like cars parked on the street, Brown said.

Curbs can be extended, lane widths reduced, medians or traffic circles installed to get cars to slow, Brown said. The cost of each measure varies depending on what it is, he said. Speed cushions, for instance, can cost $2,500 to $5,000.

Lisa Ault has lived on East Oaks Drive between North Crossover Road and East Mission Boulevard for about 20 years. She said she thinks the neighborhood has been asking the city to do something about speeding cars for about that long.

The policy requires a request to get at least 70% approval from the property owners on the street, whether it's a petition or emailed survey or some other means. Ault did that, but said polling all the neighbors was no easy feat, especially during a pandemic.

"That's hard work to get out and talk to your neighbors," Ault said. "I feel like if you get that far, you really deserve something to be done for your street."

Drivers frequently use Oaks Drive as a cut-through to avoid the Mission and Crossover intersection, Ault said. People have driven through her yard and cars have hit parked cars, she said. Police have been patrolling the neighborhood more lately, she said.

Ault said she hopes whatever policy the city adopts is fair. She suggested using traffic data alone to determine eligible streets because not all neighborhoods have someone to speak up and ask for traffic calming.

About 30-50 current requests would be eligible for a project under the policy, Brown said. Most are near schools or serve as cut-throughs to major streets.

Once a neighborhood agrees traffic calming is warranted and the data supports it, the city would present designs for the project to residents. If 60% of property owners agree on the design, then the city would install the features. After six months, the project would be reevaluated and could be continued, changed or removed, Brown said. The city's Transportation Division would make traffic calming projects part of its annual street overlay and sidewalk program, he said.

There's a $100,000 line item in the budget to cover street cost shares with developers, right of way acquisition, intersection signs and street calming. The council will need to approve how much money it wants to allocate specifically for street calming under the policy, Brown said.

Councilwoman Sarah Bunch, the representative on the Transportation Committee for the northeast part of town, where a majority of requests come from, said the revised policy looks good.

"I think it gives people who are faced with speeding in their neighborhood a place to start from," she said. "But we're going to try to look at every ward of the city and try to allocate it appropriately."

More News

Speed reduction

The National Association of City Transportation Officials recommends a number of methods to slow cars in neighborhoods, including medians, pinchpoints, chicanes and lane shifts.

To learn more, go to: http://bit.ly/nacto…

Source: National Association of City Transportation Officials

Stacy Ryburn can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @stacyryburn.

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