At the prodding of several residents on Lowell Avenue,

Summer Lane, Parkside Drive and West Beverly Place, the City Council voted to figure out how best to slow down drivers there.

Traffic engineers posed a range of fixes to the council,

from inexpensive things such as putting in stop signs, to solutions that would

cost a lot such as redesigning intersections in a way that steers cars slowly

into roads. Each has its pros and cons.

City engineer Kuldeep Sharma told the council it’s a

complicated problem, and he likened traffic to “floodwaters. If you stop it in

one place, it will go somewhere else.”

He also said there’s a perception of speeding that exceeds

traffic studies, many of which show only a small percentage of drivers speed.

But West Beverly Place resident Lance Neufeld took exception

to that.

“I invite people to sit in my front yard and watch people

driving by my house and tell me I’m just perceiving this problem,” he said.

Neufeld was one of several residents showed up to spur the

council into action. They all said the strategy of trying to “educate” drivers

to slow them down is a failure, and there are too few police to hand out

speeding tickets to do enough good.

Many of them said they support what are called “speed

lumps.” They are similar to speed humps, the wider and shorter versions of

speed bumps, but speed lumps have gaps so that the tires of fire trucks or

ambulances can pass driving down the middle of a two-lane street without having

to slow down. Cars couldn’t avoid them without driving into oncoming traffic.

But traffic studies first have to be done before even a new

stop sign can be erected, and the council voted to go ahead with that on parts

of those four streets.

Residents there will also get a vote, and if 51 percent vote

against speed lumps, they will not be built.

The council also decided to come up with a citywide policy

about how to handle complaints of speeders all over town, though the vote was

split 3-2. Councilwomen Suzanne Tucker and Evelyn Tolbert voted against it.

Tolbert wanted to decide complaints case by case, and she said she doesn’t like

to idea that “emergency vehicles” might be slowed down by humps or new stop

signs.

Tucker’s concern was that a citywide policy “is going to

cost a lot of money.” The city dipped into reserves this year to close a $6

million budget deficit.

But Mayor Brent Ives, Councilman Steve Abercrombie and

Councilwoman Irene Sundberg outvoted them.

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