Ava Kofman Photo
Clyburn, Travers, Chapman, Miller, and Stuckey weigh options.
Less than a week after a 10-year-old was struck by a car at the corner of Highland Street and Winchester Avenue, neighbors and city officials met at the intersection to talk about how to prevent the next accident from happening.
The meeting happened Wednesday afternoon in response to an accident last Thursday, which was the second such collision in a year at the Newhallville intersection.
The meeting was the latest example of Newhallville homeowners organizing to improve the neighborhood amid setbacks to absentee slumlords and street violence.
“It seems like there has to be a traffic light over here,” neighborhood organizer Tammy Chapman suggested.
“We need a light because cars keep coming by at night and speeding,” Newhallville neighbor Lee Stuckey added. He compared the flat strip of Winchester Street that runs between Division and Bassett to a racetrack because there are no traffic lights.
Jim Travers, the city’s traffic czar, said the street doesn’t see enough traffic to install a light, which could cost up to $250,000.
With a traffic light out of the picture, the brainstorming began again: Would a stop sign work? A three way stop? A speed limit? Speed bumps?
Travers said he doesn’t think the intersection has enough traffic to warrant any of those measures, either. He said the city will study it further.
City Engineer Dick Miller suggested a “bump-out” be installed to draw attention to the intersection. To those driving on Winchester, especially with considerable speed, the intersection at Highland is easy to miss.
The blind corner where the “bump-out” might be added.
A “bump-out” rounds out and extends the corners of intersection, slowing traffic and reducing the distance pedestrians have to cross. The result is a tighter road with fewer parking spots available.
Chapman called the reduced street parking a small price to pay in exchange for saving the lives of the neighborhood’s children, and avoiding bike accidents like last Thursday’s and last year’s from happening a third time.
“You have to be proactive,” Chapman said. “You can’t wait for something bad to happen.”
Chapman worked with police to submit a Complete Streets “traffic-calming” application over a year ago. She said she had not previously heard back from the city. Newhallville Alderwoman Delphine Clyburn pressed the city officials as to when the Complete Streets survey of her neighborhood’s street would happen.
Miller and Travers said they would look into it.
As the conversation continued, a Newhallville neighbor shouted from her car to get Alderwoman Clyburn’s attention. The neighbor wanted to know what was being done about another blind spot in the neighborhood at Division and Newhall.
“It’s very unsafe,” she said.
“Yes,” Clyburn agreed, and explained the issue to Travers and Miller. As the neighbor drove away, Chapman and Stuckey said they also hope officials will consider adding a second crosswalk on the corner to increase crossing safety.
Chapman said she hopes that the longer-term project of surveying these streets is “more of a priority than it was before” the accident. In the short term, she said, better signage telling cars to “Yield” and another crosswalk would be crucial for safety.
Chapman said that mornings and afternoons are the busiest times for kids crossing the street to get to school during the year. And foot traffic will only increase with the rising temperatures.
“It’s summertime,” Stuckey said. “Kids are going to be out here.”
Previous stories about Newhallville’s turnaround efforts:
• Newhallville Confronts A Mega-Landlord
• Newhallville Bounces Back; House Will Get Built
• Levin To Newhallville: “We’ll Be Back”
• Newhallville Up For “Historic” Boost
• Cops Make Arrest In 83-Year-Old Prof’s Mugging
• Harp Probes The Newhallville Conundrum
• “Let There Be Light” (Emitting Diodes)!
• “Serenity” Takes Root On Shepard Street
• Bird Garden Fights Blight
• Yale Flees Newhallville After Prof’s Mugging
One word for Jim Travers on how to slow traffic on Winchester Ave: 'chicane'. It's been done before to limit street racing on River St. Just bring in some jersey barriers, and shrink the lane width by shifting traffic to the left, then back to the right. Easy peasy, low budget, you can pull them back out before the snow comes.
The real problem, as always, is a subset of car drivers driving too fast, combined with the lanes being too wide. Shrink the lane width, and people slow down, while making it safer for pedestrians to cross.