You've got skid marks.

July 27, 2006 8:26 PM

I need advice how to make my street safer for pedestrians and pets.

I live in Los Angeles County, on a narrow street a short distance from a dead end. People have the habit of speeding down this small residential street, turning around at the end, and speeding back even faster.

It's clearly marked at the nearest intersection with a "Not a Through Street" sign, but I guess few people see it (probably just a blur). I've long been wary of the speeders as there is no shortage of children, pets and elderly people using this street well into the evening. I have a rush of nausea whenever I hear a car roaring past. I have an indoor/outdoor cat, and it frankly scares the shit out of me to let her out sometimes. The street was recently re-paved, making everything even darker, and speeding cars even harder to hear.

I've asked the Department of Transportation whether having a speed hump installed would be possible, but they explained that this street didn't qualify since it's less than 1,000' between the nearest intersection and the end. I later spoke with a contractor working for the city, and he told me that it wouldn't qualify unless it were nearer to a school or fire dept.

I've asked the Dept. of Transportation about getting a more prominent "Not a Through Street" sign to discourage the round-trip speeders, but they haven't gotten back to me about it.

Ideally, I'd like to have a stop sign installed at the nearest intersection, as I think it would discourage people speeding both to and from this street. There are stop signs everywhere else around here, so it's not insane to think it could happen. Otherwise, I have no idea what to do. This situation is really dreadful.

posted by evil holiday magic to Travel & Transportation (21 answers total)

Response by poster: Also, there are absolutely no sidewalks for miles up the street.
posted by evil holiday magic at 8:41 PM on July 27, 2006

A lot depends on your neighbors in such a situation. Have you any sense if your concerns are shared by others around you? If so, there may be things you can do as a neighborhood group, including petitioning politicians for signage and for traffic calming solutions. And some simple solutions, such as working out on-street parking patterns with your neighbors that effective narrow the street, and/or make the traffic way somewhat serpentine, may help, if such on-street parking is legal. If such parking isn't currently legal on your block, getting a variance to allow it is easier than getting traffic calming investments.

If your neighbors don't generally concur with your assessment, you may just have to assemble documentation and fight with City Hall yourself. Video tapes of speeders help. Calling the police about the problem may help, or at least get you some advice about tactics you can pursue. Building a case file with the city's traffic engineering department will help. But if you are doing this alone, it can be years and years before any action is taken.
posted by paulsc at 8:45 PM on July 27, 2006

Speed bumps are surprisingly less expensive than I thought at Grainger and McMaster-Carr. Google showed a store with them even cheaper, and the claim that they can be installed by a single person. These places will also sell you the traffic cones and vest you need to look just like a city worker.

There is likely to be an industrial rental place around where you can rent the required tools for the day if you don't own or know someone with heavy duty power tools.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:50 PM on July 27, 2006

I lived on a no-exit street that a lot of children played on. One of the mothers bought one of those yellow CHILDREN PLAYING sign, and would put it out when the kids were out.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:56 PM on July 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't get into self-installing speed bumps or other controls on city streets. In the first place, it's probably illegal for private parties to do anything to public streets. Furthermore, speed bumps need to have some engineering to be effective; if they are a little too high, emergency vehicles and garbage trucks can have real problems, and if they are too low, they become very hard to see reliably in the dark, and can contribute to serious loss of control accidents at night.
posted by paulsc at 9:02 PM on July 27, 2006

There's a a random residential street in Claremont, CA (part of 6th street) that has crazy bumps (not speed bumps, but approx. 4" round flat bumps) and traffic lines/signs to discourage speeding. They even put in a concrete divider. Get your neighbors together, get a neighborhood activist group, and have your voices heard.
posted by muddgirl at 9:20 PM on July 27, 2006

I would also recommend against spontaneous safety improvements. I could tell you about an experience I had with the justice system in Brooklyn in the late 80's when an inebriated scottymac decided some school kids needed a crosswalk. 2 cases of spray paint were involved.
posted by scottymac at 9:20 PM on July 27, 2006

I've been googling, but I can't find an example ... but there are several families in my area that have these green flourescent plastic standees that are shaped like a kid holding a flag. Essentially it's a "slow children at play" sign that's actually shaped like a kid. It *always* catches my eye, waaaay more than a mere sign.

It seemed so effective to me, I went and bought one and I park it in front of my house whenever we're outside.
posted by frogan at 9:40 PM on July 27, 2006

I just saw those at Toys 'R' Us, Frogan.
posted by IndigoRain at 9:49 PM on July 27, 2006

Here in Seattle they put in fake concrete curbs to effectively make the road into a one-lane street, alternating on both sides:


_____________________
            \ _ _ _ /
_ _ _                     _ _ _
_____\__________/_____


They work remarkably well, especially if you put toys out in the middle of the road where they're semi-hidden (coming around a corner really quick and running over a kid's toy has a sobering effect)
posted by hatsix at 10:20 PM on July 27, 2006

Don't try any speed bumps or improvements tourself. Keep hounding the City and your Alderman, especially the Alderman. Round up the neighbors to get a consensus. But realize the problem may not be as bad as you think. If you constantly listen you will hear the speeders and screechers in any neighborhood, with or without traffic control.

On your own, you may be able to offer to take a neighborhood collection to pay for City approved "SLOW" signs in bright fluorescent colors. Also depending on how narrow the street is, you may want to consider parking 2 beater cars directly across the street from each other to create a choke point. Choke points tend to slow traffic down. Otherwise educate the neighborhood kids to watch for traffic and not to play in the street. If you care for the cat, find some way to keep him in the yard with a taller chain link fence or various other methods.
posted by JJ86 at 6:07 AM on July 28, 2006

tourself=yourself, obviously.

Also realize that any standards that the City usually mentions can be waived if the political pressure is great enough. But typically that is only the case for a large problem.
posted by JJ86 at 6:10 AM on July 28, 2006

Do be careful with the do-it-yourself road improvement ideas: they're hell on firetrucks and ambulances, both heavily loaded vehicles which have a hard time going over bumps fast. You don't want to be the cause of an ambulance breaking its axle while your neighbor expires from a heart-atttack. Keep in mind also that many traffic calming measures have been found to positively correlate with increased bicycle and pedestrian accidents if they're not installed right.

Could the city put a small traffic circle at the intersection? That's been found to work very well in other jurisdictions (Vancouver, for example).
posted by bonehead at 6:30 AM on July 28, 2006

1) Find your city councillor, alderman, whatever they're called in L.A. Your representative to CITY government.

2) Get all your neighbors on the street to sign a petition requesting a speed bump for your street.

3) Go to his office and hand him the petition.

You will get a speed bump.
posted by jellicle at 6:49 AM on July 28, 2006

I lived on a narrow street with lots of kids and cats. Not a dead-end, but A) it was used as a cut-through to avoid a busy intersection, and B) there was a pizza-delivery joint on the corner. There was plenty of on-street parking on both sides, but this did not seem to slow down the through traffic much.

Some of the residents took it upon themselves to dig potholes as a traffic-calming measure. They had tried, repeatedly, to get speed bumps installed, to no avail.
posted by adamrice at 6:57 AM on July 28, 2006

I wonder how many people really *get* the meaning behind the "Not a Through Street" sign. Wouldn't a "Dead End" sign be far more effective at conveying its message. Short of getting that type of sign change is to rally the neighbors and take it up with your local government representative.
posted by mmascolino at 7:22 AM on July 28, 2006

adamrice said: Some of the residents took it upon themselves to dig potholes as a traffic-calming measure. They had tried, repeatedly, to get speed bumps installed, to no avail.

You do know that is both dangerous and criminal?

Typically a local street improvement will be assessed for special work done such as a traffic circle or speedbumps or chicanes and sometimes signage. You may be able to get alternative sources of funding such as AAA or the state but if the property owners show their willingness to pay for the upgrades then it usually goes a long way to getting things done. Money talks in any form of government especially in these times of tight budgets. But then again, how much is your peace of mind worth?
posted by JJ86 at 7:32 AM on July 28, 2006

evil holiday magic, I was looking at your profile and found the link to your location. I'm not sure if this is the area in which you live but from the Google Map, it looks like speedhumps placed well within 1000' feet of a dead end. If this is the same city, I would investigate this and use it as evidence that the city does not have such a standard as you had mentioned.
posted by JJ86 at 8:03 AM on July 28, 2006

You can request some of these free yard signs from Watch the Road.
posted by mogget at 9:55 AM on July 28, 2006

I've seen plenty of signs that say "Not a through street". Every single time they have worked as an excellent advertisement for a shortcut that saves as much as 30 minutes by driving through a residential neighbourhood (I rarely use them, except when the main street is being repaired -- funnily enough that's when the larger "Not a through street" signs go up!)

The signs that actually mean dead end say "No Exit". Every time I've driven down a road with one of these there really was no way to exit except with a U-turn.

Perhaps you just happen to have the wrong sign and people are assuming what I would -- that it's a quick shortcut and the sign's only there because somebody whined to the city too much.
posted by shepd at 12:36 PM on July 28, 2006

I'm a little confused: you say you're in LA County but are you also within LA City or some other City's jurisdiction or are you unincorporated LA County? That'll make a difference in terms of who to talk to.

Do you have a local pedestrian advocacy group? I'm in San Francisco and yes, things are different here but not only is there a Ped organization (Walk SF) there's also a citizen group, appointed by the City - the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee - that works on these issues - I used to serve on it. See if you have a local non-profit advocacy group and/or a local public-sponsored committee and appeal to them for help. Or try California Walks.

There is a Ped Safety program in LA County though it doesn't look all that robust.

My guess is that *someone* in the Department of Transportation (stil lnot sure if you mean City of County) is a ped person. If you talk to any old person at the department you're likely to end of talking to an old-school engineer type whose job is to make sure cars can get around (apologies to the traffic engineers) not that *people* can get around. But if you can find a ped person (or more likely, a *bike* person) they're be more likely to understand your concerns and try to figure out a way to help.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 12:41 PM on July 28, 2006