Slow Down.

There is an ongoing sentiment among some BP residents to lower the speed limit in the Park.  This sentiment comes from two places.

Old time BP residents recall with pride and satisfaction the days when people in two counties knew of BP as the place that told motorists "Don't Even Think About Speeding," and we meant it.  Enforcement was tight.  Now, the perception is that people speed, and no one inhibits them.  So some yearn for the good old days of what they recall as tighter enforcement.

Other BP residents, old and newer, also want to slow the flow of traffic, but they have another reason.  They want traffic impediment, for the expressed (sometimes) reason of making driving through BP so annoying that people will prefer not to do it.  These residents don't want "cut-throughs."  Some of these residents want slower traffic, and some just want less traffic.

This theme-- of traffic slowing-- got some attention at last night's Commission meeting.  Specifically, there was discussion of methods to slow traffic.  These methods included tighter enforcement, as well as installation of "traffic calming" mechanisms and devices.

I put the term traffic calming in quotes for a reason.  The mechanisms used don't really calm traffic.  They slow it.  Drivers whose progress on the roads is slowed by rotaries/roundabouts/traffic circles or various kinds of bumps are not calm.  They are aggravated.  And they are paying more attention to the slowing devices than they are to traffic and pedestrians.  An experiment in one of the Scandinavian countries showed that eliminating most traffic control resulted in fewer accidents, because drivers had to be more attentive and careful at intersections.  They couldn't simply assume that the traffic control devices would control traffic.  They realized they had their own responsibilities to control themselves, and be mindful of others.  Other problems with many of the kinds of traffic control mechanisms discussed last night include that they are traumatic to the vehicles, and they cause damage to suspensions.  And if they slow regular drivers, they also slow drivers of emergency vehicles.

None of this got much discussion last night.  Instead, there was the usual (especially for this Commission) intensity and urgency to do something, whether or not what was proposed was rational or adaptive.

In an attempt to deflect concern, Harvey Bilt told us that we should just lower the speed limit, and that doing so would not cost anything(!).  Harvey said he had researched this carefully, having made what he counted as 35 phone calls on the matter.  Others who also researched it made only one or two phone calls, and what they learned was very different from what Harvey thinks he learned.  For example, we cannot lower the speed limit-- let alone install traffic obstacles-- without the County's permission, and the County requires us to get a traffic study first.  Traffic studies are not at all free.  There's also the cost of the signs announcing the speed limit.  Tracy Truppman says she learned that if we use devices, such as speed cushions, they cost $3000 each.

Funny enough-- or perhaps not so funny-- we got a traffic study back in about 2006 or 2007.  A driver hit two children in the Park, and there was a lot of energy to lower the speed limit.  Curiously, there was no indication at the time that the faulty driver was speeding.  But there was that intensity and urgency at the time, and some simply wanted to bull ahead.  So we got our traffic study.  At the time, the permitted speed limit on all Village streets was 30.  The traffic study showed that few drivers in the Village drove faster than 25.  So we changed the limit to 25, by which action we accomplished nothing.  It did cost us, though.  And now, despite what Harvey Bilt thinks he has reassured himself, we are considering costing ourselves again.  And that's to make of the County a request they might not grant.

The alternative suggested by some, including our new Police Chief, was that we wait to see what the new administration (Manager and Police Chief) accomplish, before we start doing things.  They want to increase enforcement, and they have already begun doing it.  It seems eminently sensible, but we now have a Commission that shoots first, and asks questions later, so there's no real confidence available that the sensible will prevail.

It's not clear that traffic needs to slow down much.  Some residents who don't have speed guns have a sense that people drive too fast.  I walk for exercise, and I have that sense, too.  I sense it especially on Griffing.  Our Police Chief does have a speed gun, and he says most traffic is between 22 and 29 mph.  More than 25 is not legal on any street except 6th Avenue, but up to 29 is not blazing speed.  And the effect of that slightly higher than maximum permitted speed is mitigated for pedestrians by those pedestrians walking against the flow of traffic, so they can see cars coming (at any speed), and step onto the swale or the median.

Sure, drivers should do the right thing.  So should pedestrians.  We should all be careful.  And no one should get hysterical.  We should find solutions to problems, not invent problems, because we're eager to do something.

I think the Chief is right.  He's new at the job, we just welcomed him, and we should see what he can accomplish for us.  He knows to try to slow the traffic down, and we should slow ourselves down.