Town Engineer Connor Knightly giving an overview of the proposed speed humps at the Town Council meeting on April 6.
Photo credit: West Side Media
WEST SPRINGFIELD — The town of West Springfield is looking to combat speeding in residential areas with the proposed installation of speed humps on East Goosebury Road, Lancaster Avenue and Baldwin Street.
Town Engineer Connor Knightly gave an overview for each mapped installation in public hearings at the Town Council meeting on April 6.
Knightly said the proposed installations would most likely occur during the summer at the approval of the council.
Vehicle speeds and enforceable violations were monitored and tracked on the three streets. Knightly said the 85th percentile speed, meaning 85% of drivers go a certain speed or slower, is typically looked at more than posted speed limits.
East Goosebury Road has a speed limit of 30 mph and the 85th percentile showed drivers going at 43 mph. The street had enforceable violations in 33% of drivers, with the fastest recorded speed being 80 mph. Knightly added that the 15% of drivers going beyond the 85th percentile and driving 43 mph or above is something that “needs to be addressed right away.”
The speed humps are proposed to go in front of 175 East Goosebury Road and 61 East Goosebury Road. He said any type of “hilly” area is difficult to work around and those areas are relatively flat.
Resident Ed Kazar said he has lived there since 1988 and since he’s “already seen a number of accidents,” his main concern was a speed hump at the “crest of the hill” making things worse if people were driving too fast without seeing it and couldn’t gain control of the car.
Resident Kaitlin Kenyon said she hated where the speed humps were proposed because the “hilly areas” are where the speeding problems are, citing concerns for the safety of her children when they play in the yard.
Lancaster Avenue’s study tracked a total of 3,121 cars with 21% having enforceable violations. The 85th percentile speed was 36 mph on a 30 mph speed limit, with the fastest recorded speed being 68 mph. Knightly said two out of three sets of recorded data showed a speeding problem. The speed humps are proposed for 164 Lancaster Ave. and 315 Lancaster Ave.
Resident Will McCarthy said people speed down the street at all hours like it’s the Daytona 500 and that his dog has almost been hit twice while on walks. Resident Joan Reed said she was hoping for three speed humps because people “fly up and down that street.”
“If you’re walking, walking a dog, you literally take your life in your hands,” Reed said. “If you don’t jump over the curb or onto somebody’s lawn when the cars are going down that street, you’re going to get hit, and people have gotten hit. You can put up all the signs that you want that say ‘high traffic area, slow down’ or whatever, but it doesn’t matter. You need to do something on Lancaster Avenue.”
Baldwin Street had 6,757 recorded cars in its study with 1,300 enforceable violations. The 85th percentile speed was 38 mph on a 30 mph speed limit, with the fastest recorded speed at 62 mph. This street has four proposed speed humps in the school zone outside Memorial Elementary School.
Two would be on the section of Baldwin Street between Memorial and Cold Spring avenues and the other two would be outside the school between Cold Spring Avenue and River Street.
“Four is for good measure,” Knightly said. “The two that I would advocate for the most would be those closest to [Cold Spring Avenue]. It would not be absolutely necessary to have the ones outside of the two that are closest, but given that this is an active school zone, it is a highly traveled road and a blatant disregard for school zone hours did weigh in on that a little bit.”
He said speed humps have already been approved for installation on the other side of the school on Norman Street, which have yet to be scheduled.
The council voted to continue the public hearings to a future meeting.
