WEST SPRINGFIELD — Fixing the potholes on Circle Drive has only made the speeding problem worse, so the town is adding a few bumps back in.
The neighborhood is the latest street approved by the Town Council to receive speed humps. But at a Sept. 9 public hearing, residents doubted that humps are the best safety solution.
“Motorcycles, they’re using it as jumps,” said Eddie Kelliher, referring to the speed humps on nearby Amostown Road. He proposed narrower speed bumps that “will slow people down a lot more than the humps would.”
Circle Drive forms a loop — hence the name — connected at one end by a short spur to Morgan Road, and at the other end by an intersection with Fausey Drive, which leads to Fausey School, West Springfield Middle School, and Amostown Road. Neighbors said the problem with reckless drivers stems largely from families who use Circle Drive to cut through from Morgan Road to the schools.
“People don’t see us as a street,” said resident Jim Discenza. “We’re a convenient path. We don’t matter to them. … I’d rather have some kind of bollard system put up at the Fausey cut-through. Speed bumps, I don’t think they’re the answer. Closing that cut-through is.”
Neighbors said even school buses and town vehicles are speeding on their street. For a few weeks last summer, the town did close the connection to Fausey Drive, and Discenza said that it effectively took care of the speeding problem.
Karen Croteau said she’d recently observed a father with children in the car who “had to be going at least 70 mph.”
“It’s not young kids, it’s dads, it’s moms, it’s a wide variety of drivers that seem to think our road is a speedway,” Croteau said.
Later in the meeting, Councilor Daniel O’Brien responded that he understands why parents and buses seek the shortest route to the schools, but said the speeding on Circle Drive has been a longstanding complaint, and he doesn’t know why the town abandoned its plans to close the Fausey Drive connection.
“I don’t understand why it was not dead-ended. There was a discussion about it,” O’Brien said.
Council President Sean Powers recalled a public hearing in 2009 where closing the Fausey connection was discussed. He said there were 39 speakers in favor of dead-ending Circle Drive, but 40 against. He said the latest decision to keep the connection open stems from a desire to let plans develop for Fausey School’s replacement before making changes in nearby traffic patterns.
In the meantime, both O’Brien and Councilor Fred Connor, the district councilor who represents that neighborhood, said they intended to pressure the School Department and its busing contractor, the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative, to ensure that buses maintain an appropriate speed on Circle Drive.
“It’s up to them to regulate their speeds, or we’re going to keep turning the ratchet to the point where you can’t take a bus down Circle Drive,” O’Brien said.
Cars and buses aren’t the only traffic that the street attracts because of its proximity to two schools. The street also has a high volume of young pedestrians, said resident Lorraine Moller, and that makes controlling vehicle speeds even more important.
“I see these children coming from school and going to school, and they’re not escorted,” Moller said. “They have a tendency to play. They’re children.”
Councilors voted 8-0 to support installing speed humps along Circle Drive. Councilor Brian Griffin said the number and placement of the humps “is not set in stone,” but the initial plan is for four humps at house numbers 71, 133, 244 and 314.
Chestnut Street, too
Councilors also voted to install speed humps on Chestnut Street, a residential street that some drivers use to cut between Kings Highway and Westfield Street (Route 20). Two speed humps will be installed at locations to be determined, similar to the plan that councilors approved earlier this summer for speed humps on neighboring Pine Street.
Griffin, chair of the Traffic and Safety Advisory Committee, said the town has a prioritization plan to address speeding and road safety in several areas of town, and both the committee and the district councilors are open to suggestions from town residents.
Even after speed humps are installed, neighbors should continue to make themselves heard, said O’Brien. He said humps can be installed at varying heights and widths, and if one type isn’t properly slowing traffic, neighbors should let their town government know so that they can be modified, or moved, or more can be added.
“We only know if they’re effective by your feedback,” O’Brien said. “If we put them in at the right height, or the right number, it has to have the right effect.”
