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Ahead of another meeting tonight at City Hall at 5:30 to discuss traffic in The Woods, I wanted to share with the public what I have shared with the Service Director ahead of the meeting. Real solutions require bold moves and I feel the ongoing headache for residents in Ward One is worthy of some bold thinking. As such I share with you my suggestions to alleviate this problem.

As you’re aware, the speeding in The Woods and other parts of Whitehall is ridiculous. As to The Woods, looking at the layout of these streets, there are a number of issues which lend themselves to people speeding. 

Firstly, you have stores at either end of The Woods which people get to via the streets of The Woods; Kroger/Target/Walmart, three very important, heavily used destinations. There is little we can do to end that. 

Secondly, you have straightaways (Robinwood/Collingwood/Maplewood) which people use to get back and forth to those destinations. The very design of them creates an almost unconscious motivation to shoot down them. The closest main thoroughfares going north and south are Hamilton and James which are too far out of people’s way as a reasonable choice for getting to where they want to go (The placement of stop signs at Elbern across The Woods was a good start).

Thirdly, you have a great many scofflaws these days who have NO respect for the neighborhoods and will do as they please.

So, as I see it these are the three main issues with quality of life issues regarding traffic in The Woods. The first one, there is little to nothing that can be done. The second, there are measures to, if not reduce the amount of traffic, at least slow it down for the safety and quality of life for the residents. The third one, as I’ve preached on before, is making enforcement of traffic laws a greater priority. While other issues in Whitehall are also pressing, the citizens who live here ALSO find this one high up on the list, it is one of the greatest complaints I hear. There should be zero tolerance for speeding and scofflaw behavior (which includes MASSIVE delivery trucks ignoring our ‘Truck Routes’ code and using The Woods to avoid the main drags). In my estimate, word gets out enough, it cuts down on this behavior. 

As far as the second one goes, I have heard talk about speed humps/bumps and rumble strips. While having some effectiveness, I feel they cause an additional quality of life issue with the noise they create. Having to live by these things would be just as troubling as the speeders. Cars and trucks going over those bumps create a clanking/jangling noise from the shocks/chassis (and imagine landscaping trucks with trailers loaded with mowers and equipment!). As well, rumble strips are not aurally inert. That vibrating sound is definitely heard from some ways away. Go over to Refugee at 104 and just listen. They would be MORE irritating than speeders. Speeders you just see but don’t hear. If you’re in your house, you don’t even know they’re there but, with rumble strips, you’d be hearing it all day and night. So then, in my estimation, you want solutions that cause minimal disruption and/or further incursions into residents quality of life. Here then are my suggestions:

The intent, of course, is to slow traffic down or deter them from using our streets as cut-throughs in the first place. The long straightaways present their own challenge. Curves are great, as well as stop signs but, it still doesn’t can’t change their intrinsic dynamic. However, there ARE some things which can be done to modify that dynamic (without the cost of expensive speed bumps and aurally invasive measures.)

1. One could make some roads one-way, either all the way or half way, and make the other half the opposite one way. Another instance is keeping Maplewood two way from Broad to Etna, then making Maplewood from Main to Etna only one way going north. That’s a big deterrence to the straightaway.
2. Dead ends. Doney is a HUGE cut-across between Target and Kroger. If you made it a dead end halfway between Collingwood and Maplewood, it would divert traffic to Broad where it should be in the first place. This can be done strategically to create the most successful baffling of the traffic flow for cut throughs.
3. Bafflers, as shown in the photos I’ve included. While you can’t reconnoiter the entire street to make curves (which slow traffic down) you CAN create bafflers (as we did in an anemic fashion with the barely useful medians placed on Maplewood), using boulders and planters, reflective stanchions, signs and use of reflective lines on the street directing the vehicles. The cost for these would be minimal, certainly in comparison to other methods shared. These DIRECT traffic so as to slow them down and be mindful.
   Artfully, and with the least cost to the taxpayers, we can create a more succesful means in which to slow down and decrease traffic, in The Woods and, if successful, elsewhere in Whitehall too.

Thank you