By the time the construction season ends this year, speeding drivers will have faced a new obstacle on city streets. Under a contract the city issued last year and a contract out for bids now, there may be 1,000 speed humps on streets city-wide.
They are a reaction to citizens tiring of rampant speeding on residential streets. It's going on across major city thoroughfares. Dozens of block clubs have said they want the speed humps because the speeding makes residential streets so dangerous.
A long-time supporter of the traffic-slowing divides, Common Councilmember Rasheed Wyatt said speeding is reaching a crisis point and residents have been pushing hard.
"Many of the block clubs that have been asking for these speed humps see speeding excessively on these narrow streets where children and seniors are working and walking. People over in the University Heights area are waiting diligently for these speed humps because it affects their quality of life," Wyatt said. "And when I drive down the street and I see people slowing down with the speed humps, people are celebrating on those streets because the first rounds of streets that were done in the districts were the streets that we really complained about."
These aren't those brightly-colored hard rubber humps. These are blacktop mini-hills stretching curb to curb, street additions that can bounce the cars of speeders into the air and make drivers bounce around if they travel over the posted 15mph limit.
Wyatt said this may push more drivers onto major streets, like Bailey Avenue, but that gets them off the residential streets.
