Neighborhood Street Calming – FAQs
The 85th percentile speed is the most common measure that traffic engineers use when trying to describe the speed of a group of vehicles; for example, all cars traveling northbound on Jefferson Street at Holmes Avenue over a 24 hour period. Rather than an “average speed ” of the pack, it is the speed that 85% of the cars are traveling at or below.
It is important to remember that 15% of the measured speeds are faster than this value, so that even though a street has an 85th percentile speed of (say) 35 MPH, it doesn’t mean that there are not some cars traveling 60 MPH or more.
Because there is such a high demand (and limited resources) for neighborhood traffic calming, a priority system has been developed by the City’s Engineering Division and the Police Department.
Requests are prioritized, based on speeds, volumes, and collision history, and then ranked by severity of the problem. Once a year (typically late September-early October), a list of projects for the coming Fiscal Year – October through September – is selected. If a request does not receive a high ranking (due to the fact that other requested streets have more severe problems), it is possible that the request will not warrant installation of traffic calming devices for several years. If the magnitude of the problem is severe enough so that the request receives a higher priority, the project could be completed in that same Fiscal Year.
Please see our Traffic Calming Steps for a step-by-step overview of the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program.
The neighborhood Point of Contact is established when the questionnaire form is completed and returned to Traffic Engineering. It is usually the resident who has requested the information, but does not necessarily have to be that same person. The Point of Contact is established in order to provide the City with a single point for communications regarding: information about the problem, placement of data collection devices, distribution of petitions, and scheduling of the project construction.
Yes, but residents are discouraged from starting this process themselves.
The petition form itself must be developed by Traffic Engineering Staff and sent to the Point of Contact, complete with all of the addresses that are to be polled in the petition. All residences must be polled for support of traffic calming devices – either “Yes” or “No”. Addresses left blank are treated as a “No”.
A 75% “Yes” vote must be met for traffic calming devices to be installed. Special circumstances will be treated on a case-by-case basis.
Those who were not notified through the petition process (i.e., resident not at home, etc.) must be notified via posted flyers by the Point of Contact. The City will provide the flyers to be posted, which will list the types of traffic calming devices (speed cushions), number and location of devices, installation date, and City contact numbers if there are questions.
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