Last night a car drove up on the hillside at the Herron Avenue S-curve, knocking over the neighborhood sign and flattening the bushes and plantings. This part of the curve is hit frequently; the stone wall was badly damaged by another vehicle this fall. This is also where pedestrians cross, so the frequency of accidents is of particular concern.
Incidents like this highlight the need for long-term solutions to the problem of speeding and cut-through traffic. The issue is complicated. Roads are public thoroughfares and Polish Hill’s location means that it’s the only quick route between certain points, so vehicles are going to come through. City traffic engineers and Zone Traffic Division are looking at the problem and have advised us that the best way to address the issue is to make it difficult for drivers to speed. If it’s not as quick and easy to cut through Polish Hill, more drivers will stay on the main roads, and the vehicles that do come through will move more slowly.
We’re collecting feedback from residents in order to see what traffic calming measures they want, and where, with the Polish Hill Traffic Calming Survey. The majority of responses thus far support speed humps (not speed bumps, which are higher). The most-requested location is Melwood Avenue, followed by Herron Avenue and Paulowna Street, all streets that are particularly affected by cut-through rush hour traffic.
Another way to support traffic calming solutions is to file a 311 report. Let the City know the impact that speeding and cut-through traffic have on you, and what solutions you want to see.
I live on Melwood and when my husband had a brand new van, it was hit any number of times parked there, not even once did anyone stop, just kept going. We have a garage but the van had roof racks and the garage could not accommodate those (too high). Now we only have a car and use the garage, never parking on the street but we are still paying the price for speeding as many people park with 2 wheels on our new sidewalk, after spending thousands to get a new sidewalk with no help from anyone, we have put up with that. When my husband parked 2 wheels on our sidewalk, we had to pay a ticket (hundreds of dollars) even after trying to fight it in traffic court so it really irritates us to see others do what we could not and get away with doing? I don’t care if all cars get tagged for parking on the sidewalk, I don’t want them to do it to ours. The city came around a few years back when we had the old sidewalk and cited me for having an uneven sidewalk after having 2 huge messy trees cut down, so I can’t win. When you tell people not to park that way, they swear and call you names, it’s maddening. Our neighbors do it so it looks like it’s OK, their cars are halfway on their sidewalk, they too do what they want? OK for some, not for us.