Boston installing hundreds of speed humps to "calm traffic" in neighborhoods
BOSTON - The city of Boston is in the midst of a three-year plan to outfit residential side streets with speed humps that are meant as a traffic calming device. The goal is 500 humps a year, and by the end of the project at least half of the city's streets will have them.
Neighborhood by neighborhood, cluster by cluster, the three-inch tall, 12-foot-long asphalt humps are an answer, the city says, to complaints about too much speeding.
Residents have noticed a difference
Some residents like Jeff Power in Roslindale say they've seen the difference. "No one is stopping at the stop sign and then acting like it's a drag race, so I think it's a great improvement," Powers said.
But some drivers, like Aaron Lester, say they are of two minds about safety, seeing the need to slow drivers, but also think the safety surge can be too much. "They can certainly be an annoyance trying to get from point A to point B," Lester said.
Most residential streets eligible
Most residential side streets in the city are eligible as long as they're not major thoroughfares, MBTA bus routes, or particularly hilly or curvy.
Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge says the project is also designed to not let drivers just speed on other streets. "Instead of a single street that pushes traffic onto somebody else, we're doing a set of streets in a neighborhood, so that anyone who is travelling through the neighborhood in a residential area is going to encounter speed humps," said Franklin-Hodge.
Countering navigation apps
The city is also trying to counter navigation apps that encourage time-saving side streets, according to Brendan Kearney co-Executive Director for WalkMassachusetts. "The speed humps are trying to be responsive to technology telling people different ways to get around," said Kearney.
With the new humps on her Jamaica Plain street, Meredith Levy hopes they encourage safety beyond her neighborhood. "For me it's a reminder to just chill out a bit and take things slowly," she said.
Like them or not, drivers should prepare for more bumpy roads ahead. "What we're trying to do is calm traffic in our neighborhoods so that people can feel comfortable and safe," said Franklin-Hodge.
