Thomas Breen photo
A “Your Speed” sign at Dixwell Avenue and Argyle Street.
City transit chief Doug Hausladen.
Wooster Square will soon receive two new permanent “Your Speed” signs, including at an Olive Street intersection where a pedestrian was killed during an automobile collision three years ago.
City transit chief Doug Hausladen made that announcement on Tuesday night during the regular monthly meeting of the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team on the second floor of City Hall.
“Long overdue update on two small traffic management issues that you requested,” Hausladen said. “One is Olive Street speeding; the other is Chapel Street speeding.”
In the next few weeks, Hausladen said, the city will install a permanent “Your Speed” traffic sign on the northbound side of Olive Street near the intersection with Greene Street, and on the eastbound side of Chapel Street near the intersection of DePalma Court. The signs will sit atop permanent city-installed metal poles, and will display how fast a vehicle is traveling as it approaches and passes the sign.
Tuesday’s Downtown Wooster Square management team meeting.
The Olive Street sign was paid for by the management team’s Neighborhood Public Improvement Program (NPIP) funds from two years ago, and will be placed near an intersection where a Wooster Square resident Dolores Mariconde Dogolo was killed during an automobile collision while she was walking across Olive Street.
The Chapel Street sign, Hausladen said, is the result of a Complete Streets application, and is in line with various city traffic-calming initiatives, including Safe Routes to School, Safe Routes to Food, and Safe Routes to Parks.
Hausladen said the new signs cost between $3,500 to $6,000 each to install, and that the city is currently looking into how to reduce those costs. He said the city has identified 10 locations in various neighborhoods where such permanent “Your Speed” radar signs should be placed. The only one currently up in the city, he said, is located at Dixwell Avenue and Argyle Street.
Wooster Square block watch captain Sarah Greenblatt (right).
“Does it over time track the speeds of cars coming through?” asked Wooster Square Block Watch captain Sarah Greenblatt.
Yes, Hausladen replied, but his department doesn’t currently have the money or the person-hours to dedicate to purchasing and administering that feature, which would allow the city to keep an electronic log of the speed of traffic going by the future Chapel Street and Olive Street signs.
Hausladen said a recent federal survey indicated that permanent, radar-enabled traffic safety enforcement tools are effective at reducing vehicle speeds.
Even more effective, he said, have been radar signs that display a smiley face when a car is going at a legal speed, and a frowny face when a car is going above the speed limit.
“We’re trying to work on the programming for that,” he said.
<Whew> For a while there, it looked like they weren't going to do anything.