City enacts new policy for addressing traffic complaints
Residents now have a new way to address traffic concerns with the city after a new traffic calming policy went into effect earlier this week.
City Manager Jeff Downes said the internal policy is intended to give some “structure” to the three dozen or so individual complaints the city has received from residents, creating a way for residents to petition the city to perform various kinds of work on the roads to alleviate problems.
The most common types of issues, Downes said, involve people running stop signs, speeding and drivers cutting through the road to get to a major roadway. The city has received multiple complaints about the same problems, Downes said, and is working to try and fix them.
“We’re trying to address them all in due course of business,” Downes said.
The policy, which can be found here, only applies to certain streets. To qualify for the city’s intervention under the policy, the road must:
- Have a posted speed limit of 30 mph or less.
- Have traffic volume between 500 and 4,000 vehicles in a day.
- Be a two-lane road.
- Not be a primary access to a commercial site.
- Not be a primary emergency response or transit route
- Not have had work requested within the last three years, unless it is determined that a nearby major development or changing environmental conditions warrant a new review.
The first step in the policy is to initiate a request by filling out a traffic calming request form, which can be found at www.vhal.org, or by calling the city’s public services department at 205-978-0150. The city engineering staff will then determine the study area and collect “preliminary information,” such as traffic volume, posted speed limits, existing signage and striping and other important information, according to the policy.
If the road meets the criteria for consideration under the policy, the next step is for the resident who applied for the work to circulate a petition within the study area and obtain signatures agreeing with the request from at least 70 percent of residents in the study area. If the petition is successful, the city will then work to come up with a plan to address the issues.
Traffic calming measures that may be enacted may include: rumble strips, one-way signs, warning signs, traffic circles and roundabouts, reduction in lane widths and others, all of which can be found within the city’s policy.
After the city proposes the work, the resident must again take that proposal and gain 70 percent approval from affected residents. During this time, public meetings may be scheduled.
If the project is approved by both the city and the residents, the city will then schedule design and implementation of the project within budgetary constraints, and depending on other pending requests, it may be placed on a waiting list. Any possible public/private partnership may “expedite priority,” according to the policy.
“We’re trying to create a rational process by which these traffic calming measures can be evaluated,” Downes said.