March 22, 2000

Dear Kyle,

Found your web page concerning the speed hump issue very interesting. A number of years ago I would have agreed with you completely, but things changed in late 1988 when my first daughter was born. As the months went by and our newborn began to crawl and then toddle, our swimming pool became a hazard. The solution was a pool fence, we wanted to prohibit access to the pool not just be alerted by an alarm. It wasn't long before the chain-link fence went up around the backyard mostly in response to the speeding traffic on 38th street. Although a fence won't stop a determined child it strongly discouraged toddlers from wandering into the street. So we've felt reasonably protected from potential tragedy for the past several years. Our second daughter was born in 1990 and now both want to ride their bikes in the neighborhood (just like I did in suburban Miami in the late 1960's) but 38th street speeders scare me.

Your point about emergency services access to our neighborhood is a good one, I would be interested to hear an opinion from the emergency services folks about our specific speed hump proposal. Maybe they would prefer to fight the speed humps forever than to have to come help even one child hurt by a speeder.

Is speeding on 38th street really a problem? I can assure you it is, for years now I have witnessed lots of speeding while working the our backyard. Even responsible adult neighbors with young children struggle to keep their speed in the 25mph range. Young adult neighbors are more of a problem, and the friends that come to visit them are worse. I still remember my days as a young driver,  I too was often guilty of speeding through residential streets. The City's survey indicated that over 80% of the traffic on 38th street exceeded the 25mph speed limit, that is probably me and you Kyle.

So what should be done? I thought that a three way stop on 38th and 3rd would help but the City told me that since 38th street was not a thru street it would never happen. Although I do hate real speed bumps, the kind that you find in local parking lots, I was rather pleasantly surprised by the speed humps installed on 2nd Place, a route I travel daily. They have done a terrific job of calming the traffic on 2nd Place all day and all night (you should hear how fast some folks drive on 38th street after 11pm). Even if everyone in our neighborhood agreed to drive with more caution what about everyone else? The City bus, the UPS truck, the school bus, all of the various service vans and trucks; a vast majority of the traffic on 38th street exceeds the speed limit.

Police presence would help but will never be 24 hours a day, probably never 1 hour a week. I really don't want to get people in trouble I just want to strongly discourage all of them from speeding in our neighborhood, especially past my house. I'll be happy to endorse any other speed control approach that works all of the time (soon my kids will want to walk to the movies by themselves and return way after dark). So far the speed humps on 2nd place appear to work in spite of the drawbacks that you mention.

Sincerely,

Bob McKey
 

For those who are interested, you can read my reply here