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Humped to death? You will be in an emergency
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Humped to death? You will be in an emergency
Feb. 18, 2012
By Pat Williams
Lee’s Summit
Two weeks ago I wrote a letter to this paper which received many comments of affirmation on Facebook and also at The LS Tribune’s web site from people who felt like me, opposed to the “humping” of city streets as a method of speed control, or “traffic calming measure” as they like to refer to them. I will remind the readers again that I am not being naughty; the city named these speed bumps “humps” as a way of making them sound friendlier to the public.
In my last letter I referenced how the city invited only homeowners to their meeting who had property touching Victoria and who would likely be more favorable to being “humped.” This was done with a letter directly to those residents along Victoria. The city did not invite the other 200 or so households that rely on Victoria as their only reasonable way to get into or out of their homes. My house is one house off of Victoria; I am not the corner house, but right next to it. For me to get out, and not use Victoria I would have to travel on seven different streets before arriving at Tudor Road so I could travel east or west. So if the city had expanded their definition of the “Impact Area” to any one not directly on Victoria then, I suppose I would have been included but, I was not, nor were any of the other 200 homeowners whose property values went down after the ”mass humping.” After all, who wants to buy a home that is so restrictive to get to?
A Councilman replied on Facebook after my letter published, “Traffic speeds on Victoria Drive east of Station were 36 mph pre-construction and 25 mph post-construction of the humps.” He went on to state that “traffic speeds on Victoria Drive west of Station were 33 mph pre-construction and 27 mph post-construction.” Those numbers are impressive, BUT we are talking about the total time it takes a fire truck, ambulance, police car or even the average resident to get from one end of the street to the other, not just a snap shot measurement with a radar gun on a trailer at one specific point along the way, where the vehicle would be going at its top speed.
Let me recap my last letter. Two Fridays ago there was a fire at a home on Magnolia, a street just off Victoria Road. To get to this fire, two fire trucks had to turn onto Victoria gain speed, slow down for the first speed “hump,” quickly gain speed again, brake hard for the second hump, accelerate rapidly to the next hump, brake hard, pick up speed again to the following hump and continue this accelerating and decelerating up to six times. The humps that the city put in to slow traffic delayed the fire trucks and police vehicle getting to that fire.
I knew that the councilman was not lying, but the numbers he was quoting were a snapshot of traffic speed and were not the “average overall speed. “ The numbers did not accurately depict the situation which unfolded in front of me Feb. 3. Emergency vehicles with lights and sirens on slowed to an absolute crawl to get over each of the humps that were installed by the city on Victoria Road while the firemen were trying urgently to get to the fire on Magnolia.
So I decided to try and do my best to repeat the progress of an emergency vehicle over these humps and see what my actual “overall speed” would be over the entire length of Victoria. I enlisted the help of a neighbor to help me. We used a rolling wheel to measure the length of Victoria from approximately the stop sign at Independence Street to a power box alongside of the road just short of the movie theater driveway and Burger King. It measured 3,835 feet.
We then drove this distance on Victoria four times, each time doing our best to imitate what the fire trucks were forced to do. We got a rolling start, just as a fire truck would have had if it were turning onto the street. We accelerated hard but safely to a speed of 25 mph, maybe a little over, just as I observed the two fire trucks with lights and sirens do. We sped to the first hump, then slowed quickly to a near stop – just as the fire trucks did. We accelerated hard but safely, trying to imitate a speeding fire truck to the next hump. We did this for the remaining five humps, trying to get our speed up rapidly between each obstacle. We clicked the stop watch off when passing the markers I described earlier. We did this four times to establish an average, which was 2 minutes and 14 seconds. We were being careful and prudent while doing this experiment and were also doing our best to be more than fair to the city.
We used a formula easily found on the internet, mph = distance in miles / time in hours. The distance was 3,835 feet or .7263 miles, and I divided this by the average time it took us to cover the distance, 2 minutes and 14 seconds, or .0375 of an hour. I got a speed of 19.4 MPH. I doubt that a 25 ton fire truck could have been as quick and agile as my much smaller and snappier pickup truck was. In my opinion, this puts to rest the question of whether or not the “humps” slow down emergency vehicles and jeopardize the safety of homeowners in Lee’s Summit. “HUMPS” ABSOLUTLEY DO HINDER EMERGENCY VEHICLES TRYING TO DO THEIR JOBS OF PROTECTING THE CITY. Just as they do the residents on every trip made every day. We won’t even talk about the obvious wear and tear on the vehicles.
Now as I suggested in my original “Letter to the Editor,” the council men/woman should imagine doing this to their families (the “humping” that is) before they do it to another neighborhood. Nineteen miles an hour does not sound too bad ... unless of course it is your house on fire. These humps are absolutely negative to the community who has to pass through them every time they leave and return to their home.
The city did an extensive study on what was probably thousands of average drivers and their speeds on Victoria to see what the average “snap shot” speeds was. Let’s consider what I truly believe. While there will always be a few idiots who speed, the average driver is careful and prudent when driving on residential streets and tends to travel at a speed that they deem to be safe for that particular street and situation. If you can agree with that premise then I would like to suggest that perhaps the 25 mph speed limit posted on Victoria might be incorrect. After all, you are only speeding if the sign says you are.
I traveled around the city looking for comparable streets to Victoria, streets where the city was not trying to enforce a speed limit of 25 mph. I quickly found that there are many similar streets in traffic use and residential population which were posted faster than 25 mph.
Ward Road south of Douglas is an ideal example. This street is similar to Victoria, maybe a little narrower. It is lined with residential driveways along its sides, a fairly major feeder road and has an elementary school at one end of the road. It is just like Victoria – except the speed posted is 30 mph.
Douglas south of Chipman is also very similar. Once again, it is a little narrower than Victoria. It has numerous driveways along its sides and is also adjacent to a school as well as several churches. Its speed is posted at 35 mph. Of course, the school zones in both of my examples are appropriately posted at 20 mph.
So I suggest to the city council, the public works department, and the city as a whole that perhaps the only thing that needed to be done was to look at your own survey findings on traffic speeds, and consider changing the posted speed limit to 30 or even 35 mph. Changing a traffic sign might have been a more sensible approach at achieving compliance and would have been a lot cheaper and simpler.
It is nice to drive down Ward Road, and Douglas, unlike the negative drudgery of Victoria. Why isn’t my street as peaceful as others? Stop this policy of punishing everybody for the actions of a very few speeders, who will always be around, and a very few complainers who also will always be around. Do not allow them to make their problem my problem! Before considering an action like this again, and I hope you never do, get the input of everybody who will be impacted. Let’s not allow the special interest of a very few impact the lives of so many. Let’s tear these humps out so we can build a community emphasizing an outstanding “quality of life” in Lee’s Summit.
Related article: http://lstribune.net/opinion/speed-humps-halt-important-traffic.htm
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Public Hearing for KCP&L’s Proposed Rate Increase to be held December 8 in Lee’s Summit
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This is lengthy so bear with it.
Michael White City Traffic engineer
2/1 public works meeting
1. Application received.
2. Form a petition of properties adjacent to the street -( impact area)
3. Petition is submitted back to applicant with a request of 50% support from residents. Once 50% support is received, public works schedules a meeting with the applicant and adjacent property owners and they extend the invitation to the neighborhood in case there is anyone interested in the program that may be impacted. This is done to clarify the program and discuss issues. (I NEVER RECEIVED ANY INVITES FOR CIRCLE NOR HUMPS)
4. Conduct traffic study
5. Receives a score based on the study
6. Conduct another meeting with the same group of people again inviting everybody and anybody to attend. It's a public meeting.
7. Review traffic study and entertain any suggestions for change if they do recommend traffic calming. If they don't rise up, they will discuss enforcement techniques or education techniques.
8. Following neighborhood meeting if they do want to proceed with calming , there is a request for 75% approval of support petition by neighbors from same impact area. Also require 100% support of adjacent property owners.
9. After traffic calming has been installed, another study done.
10. If they don't like, another petition must be submitted for removal with the same 75% approval for removal.
Direct quote - "One part in the application process that we added last year and we came to this committee to give a presentation and to talk about the public involvement process.
Prior to construction and we did this in last year's construction projects, we provided notice with variable message boards within 30 days in advance of construction of traffic calming and we sent out public notices to the residents in the neighborhood."
Must have 75% support residents and 100% support for those residents adjacent to proceed.
When asked if the calming circle was still necessary on Victoria, his response was "I don't know that it's still necessary. I think you would have the same results with or without the traffic circle along the entire corrider now that all of Victoria has calming installed."
So who is putting in the application to have them removed?