Neal Harrington: Public nuisances

Regarding the Sept. 28 news article “North Hills expansion plan draws concerns about traffic”: So John Kane says speed “bumps” have been successful on Northbrook? Let’s examine this “success.” Since the speed humps on Northbrook were installed in January 2013, the accident rate has gone from six a year for the preceding 3+ years to seven a year since. The speeds observed by the City of Raleigh in 2013 after a 5 mph speed limit reduction and the hump installation decreased by less than 2 mph compared with 2007, with no reduction in traffic volume.

Meanwhile, emergency response times have increased due to the out-of-spec humps slowing ambulances and fire trucks to a crawl.

With success like this, who needs failure? It is time for the city council to report the new traffic-calming rules out of committee after a year of foot dragging so petitions can be started to remove these public nuisances.

This story was originally published September 29, 2016 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Neal Harrington: Public nuisances."