The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

The street I live on is an insanely busy street, and is often used as a bypass for Garnett or 21st 129th.  It also seems that it doubles well as a drag strip.  There are people that easily do 60 past my house.  We have had numerous cars hit being parked in the street (not enough driveway honestly) and one even totaled when a driver lost control of their car.  Now with this kind of driving behavior I have been wanting for years to have speed humps installed here, but nothing.  Now I see them not only popping up in South Tulsa neighborhoods but North Tulsa as well.  Can anyone tell me what needs to be done to get COT to do this?  Or will it have to come from private funds (home owners association or such)?

You have to go through the COT Traffic/Streets Dept and trhey will have to come out and research it. You may have to petition your neighbors as well to show that there is a large enogh demand.

We have been trying to get them in our neighborhood for a few years now (including filing paperwork, surveys, neighborhood meetings, etc). It seems to be a VERY lengthy process.

Well, I have printed off the application.  If I have to, I'll sit out there with a camcorder then take it to the meetings and show it.  Something has to be done out here.  Can't get TPD to sit out here after 5pm (which is when it starts getting real bad) and short of standing in the street with a ball bat yelling at people to slow down (yes, I have done this) I don't know what else to do

I'm guessing you live on or near the street that runs south of 21st at the light in front of Foster Middle School, correct?  I believe that's 121st East Ave.

That would be it

My brother lived on near that street at 30th, after where it forces you to turn, but they still drove like asshats then.  He hurled a rock at one going what we would estimate 65mph one night.

That is actually right where I am at.  They still drive like asshats.  Used to not be as bad back when a cop lived down the street and parked in the street, but since he moved it has gotten worse.

Yes, we need more wear and tear on our emergency apparatus.  ::)

There are much better ways to go about traffic calming. The last thing we need in Tulsa is more outdated ideas.

We're all ears Nate.  Because obviously the police don't help.  I've lived in two neighborhoods like this and the answer I got both times was 'unless you can catch them, there's nothing we can do'.

Don't we pay them for that?  Isn't that what they earn a paycheck for?

Or is it to sit in hidden church parking lots at the end of every month to try and tag everyone going 2 over the speed limit to make quota?

The wider design of the speed HUMPS have much less damaging effect on vehicles.  It's amazing how we can update outdated ideas.  As Hoss says, if you have a better way of getting these people to slow down, let us know.  While I am not a big fan of having to go over these things, they are better then people going interstate speeds down my neighborhood street.  I could care less if the fire trucks have to get their suspension redone ten times as often if that is what it akes to keep my kids safe.

My neighborhood association got the city to put our streets on their schedule. 120 houses and they want to put in 77 speedbumps. That means every 4th house has a hump in front of it.

I voted against them because that is excessive and because the speeders in our neighborhood do 30 or 35 at most and the speedhumps they put in are meant to be mild enough that driving 25 over them is easy so if you do 5mph, it's not big deal. If we had people doing 50, I'd see the point, but we don't. We just have a few vocal people who sit outside and scowl at anyone doing over 15.

yeah, that would be a bit much.  I think that AT MOST it should be one hump every block.  And as I said, usually I dislike them, but in this case it is a real safety issue.  Too bad we don't have a neighborhood association to push the issue.

Potholes work just as well as speedhumps to slow traffic and they are much easier to make. Just saying...

Oh we have plenty of those.  Unfortunatly the street is wide enough that they can swerve around them.  Of course, this might be part of the issue.  The street is actually wide enough to have four lanes... in fact, I think it's wider then parts of Peoria

Fixing the design of the street is a far better solution than speed humps. It will also make the streetscape nicer.

can you be any more vague?   And streetscaping is something that would have much higher costs then speed humps and a few replaced shocks and struts.  While I would love to see this neighborhood overhauled and looking better, I also have to wrangle with reality, which states that it won't happen on our cities current budget.

A Google Search for "traffic calming" is a good introduction. Basically, the idea is to make drivers not want to drive so fast, by narrowing the street, creating choke points, reducing sight lines, possibly introducing a center median, and so on. Roundabouts are also a good option.

Aside from a few crazy people who won't slow down for anything at any time, including speed humps, if you make the road feel more constrained.

Edited to add: There are a couple of the mini-roundabouts I'm speaking of in Fayetteville (http://"http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=fayetteville,+ar&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.956293,89.560547&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Fayetteville,+Washington,+Arkansas&ll=36.075068,-94.163161&spn=0.001537,0.002733&t=k&z=19"), along with a mess of ridiculous traffic humps speed tables.

OK, so answer me this:  how does making a street narrower make it safer for emergency vehicles?  Or at least any safer than one with the speed tables?  Can you imagine a full-on fire engine trying to travel down a narrowed street residential.  Hell, driving down Lewis from 31st to 51st gives me the heebeejeebees.

It's not safer for the emergency vehicle, it's safer for the person they're trying to help (the first responder can arrive more quickly) and for the maintenance budget on those vehicles.

The point isn't to make the road dangerous to drive on, the point is to make it uncomfortable to drive dangerously. Wide and straight (or gently curving) residential streets give drivers a false sense of safety due to the good sightlines and relatively large distance between themselves an any obstacles. Designing the road to appear to a driver to be as dangerous as it really is makes them less willing to drive so carelessly.

Properly designed, these traffic calming measures need not appreciably slow emergency response times, as it is still possible to drive quickly down the street, just not comfortable. Other measures are also far more pleasant to both drive on and look at than speed humps or speed tables. They actually improve the public space (widening sidewalks, planting trees, etc) rather than making it appear even more blighted than at present.

FWIW, the fire truck makes it down my narrow residential street just fine. It's usually a single lane, too, thanks to lots of people parking on the street here. And they drive it down my street on the way back from every call, it seems, so it must not be that bad for them.

I was a volunteer fireman in a former life.

Firetrucks don't really go that much faster than regular traffic.  It's too easy to get in an accident and then they would be even later.

I couldn't sleep, so I did some research on this.  Of the traffic calming measures out there, beyond the speed tables, the only one that I can really see being used here is the choke points, and even that is questionable.  However, if a design could be put in place to use these, the other problem is that choke points generally cost about $14k to install, where speed tables run from $2k to about $4k each.  So as a fiscal concern, I don't really see the choke point being viable.  Other methods really would not be feasible on this street because of the frequency of homes and driveways.  Beyond that, they also have a tendancy to have a prohibitably high cost. 

I also noted that in my research, I found no mention of speed tables, or humps for that matter, causing any undo stress on emergancy vehicles.  The speed tables do slow down e-vehicles, but only at a rate of under 3 seconds per table.   I really don't see the need to place an excessive amount of these devices in, so the effect on response time would be minimul.  There are versions of the tables that would allow larger vehicles such as firetrucks and ambulances to stradel them by having sections out of the device, but these have other problems with them that would have to be taken into consideration. 

In all, I would love to see several measures put in place (there are some area's further away that could benifit from choke points and such) and this made into a lot more pedestrian friendly neighborhood, but with the economical situation now, I wouldn't want to press my luck too much. As it is, even the relativly low cost speed tables might be a pipe dream, but I can only but try.

Speed tables might invite an imitation of the Dukes of Hazzard mini jumps in the younger crowd that hasn't had to replace a suspension yet.

Otherwise, drag racing between speed bumps (or similar) can be great fun.   ;D

The thing is, speed tables and speed humps are higher cost in the long run, as they require more regular maintenance. They also cause difficulty with street sweeping and snow removal. I have yet to see a city not go overboard with them. Fayetteville "got religion" on this issue some years back and they've gone speed table insane. Installations that were originally a single speed table became three speed tables in a row with an added median.

The one place I find them appropriate are at signed crosswalks. You bring the level of the road up to the level of the sidewalk at the crosswalk so it provides better warning to drivers (both visual and tactile) and makes the crossing more pedestrian friendly.

I know it's simplistic but would increasing stop signs on the road work?

We have people hauling down our street but they do at least slow down at the loan stop sign 1/2 a block down from my home.

They then proceed to gun it after but they did slow or stop at the stop sign.

I'd think if you increased the stop signs on the street some people would not use the road at all thus making it safer.

There have been a few on TN Forum that have advocated using the non-arterial streets to relieve traffic problems, specifically half-mile roads. None have advocated speeding but fast traffic would be one of those unintended consequences.

Another job for properly designed streets. ;)

Make 'em so people don't want to drive more than 35mph, and they would still be useful, but traffic would be slow enough to not be dangerous.

Sometimes I wonder how it is that we didn't end up with a mess of dead Marshallese toddlers in the neighborhood I lived in in Springdale. Pretty much everybody would haul down the street at 45-50mph (it was rather wide for a residential street) while the Marshallese toddlers wandered around unsupervised next to the road, yet in the four years I lived there, none of them wandered out into the street and got hit.

It makes me think that people may be expending energy on what is really a pretty minor safety issue. (I know, anecdotes are not data)

Maybe the Marshallese toddlers are smarter than American toddlers,  or at least better disciplined.

Better reaction times?

It's probably that the Marshallese kids keep the Marshallese toddlers out of the streets because they know if their brother/sister/cousin/whatever got hit by a car they'd be up for an donkey whooping.

They have installed stop signs at locations down the street, but unless you put them in at every block, they just become a minor inconvienance to most, and get ran by others that don't really care.  I have noticed that those that don't mind doing sixty through a neighborhood don't care about stopping at stop signs either (in general). 

Properly designed tables should not present problems to snow plows, and only marginally effect street sweepers.  Not that the snow plow would be an issue anyhow.  in the 17 years I have been here, I've never seen a one come down this street.  So that makes it a bit of a moot point anyhow.  As far as the city trying to install more then needs to be, the recent installations that I have seen have been pretty appropriate.  Also, that is why the community (read I here) should stay involved in the process to help insure that what the neighborhood wants is kept in the for front. 

Speed humps?  Is that like sport f***ing?

Uh! thank you mam. Uh! Thank you mam. Uh! Sorry Sam. Uh! thank you mam.

If you want an annoying, pollution causing bandaid in your neighborhood, that's your perogative, I suppose. All I can do is point out the better options.

If you build a road that looks like a highway, people will want to drive at highway speeds on it. If you build a road that looks like an English country lane, people will want to drive like they're on a country lane. If you build the road like the whole thing is a sidewalk, drivers get scared and creep along at a crawl, if not avoid the road entirely.

I keep wondering where this pollution thing comes from. I've seen it several times as a con to speed tables, but nothing to explain this, only that it is air pollution.    Not sure how it can be considered a bandaid though, since that would imply temporary.

I do understand that by changing the street itself can change driving habits, but unless you have actually been on the street and taken everything into consideration as to what it would take to actually implement this, you shouldn't assume that it is the answer.  While, as I said before, some other techniques might work well, there is also the matter of cost.  The members of the neighborhood cannot afford these costs, and we would have to rely on the city.  With the city involved, as much as I would like a revamp of the entire street, I cannot see this actually being approved.  And so that you know, I hav eapplied for "traffic calming", not speed tables in particular.  I will see how things go from here before I start pushing one issue or another.

It's a bandaid because it doesn't address the actual problem, which is people feeling comfortable driving at an excessive speed due to bad street design. Speed tables only slow drivers down around the speed tables themselves. The increased pollution comes from the constant accelerating and decelerating due to the speed tables. For whatever reason, most people race between them, even when they know they're just going to have to brake again shortly. And being in the middle of the road constantly driven over by traffic, they don't last as long as other improvements will.

Speed tables are a good as a temporary installation until something better is done. They should not be the end goal.

I don't think that any one said that it should be.

With that being said though, talk to a parent who has lost a child due to idiots vrooming down these roads and they'll tell you ANYTHING that would have kept their child with them would have been welcome.

I respect residential neighborhoods and basically stay out.  However....
I see a curvy, changing road as a challenge and something to be conquered at something other than a crawl. "Straight and level" may be a skill but it is BORING...

You and me both, Red Arrow.  I get awful weary of Tulsa streets because there's no interest, just strait and level.  That narrow section of Lewis is nerve-wracking, but at least there's something to keep a driver occupied.  The roads in Osage county would be great for ... ahem ... country lane driving as we understand it, but the surfaces are -terrible- and the residents always give me funny looks that last a long time.

Curvy roads may slow down pickups and Buicks, but for all those that say, "All season tires?  Pshaw!  Gimme the sticky ones," it's encouragement.

Twisty road design is a great idea, but it's impractical - too expensive and even more so if there's an existing 'speedway' to be removed beforehand.  Reality says stop signs and speed bumps/humps/tables.

Oh and people, keep your kids out of the street, for Pete's sake.

The Gran Sport, Sport Coupe/Sedan, Grand National options in the Skylark and Regal series usually had factory suspension mods that made them handle reasonably well.  Not a Vette, Porsche, or BMW but as good as any Detroit offering in a similar size.  There were a few years when those options were mostly trim packages.

Heh heh, damning with faint praise.  ;)

Point taken however!

I understand what you mean. I love to drive fast down some deserted dirt roads (paved is fine, too, but dirt is better). You should see the oil pan on my Accord sometime. It's living proof of my former proclivities. (They must have made it out of unobtainium, as it still holds oil despite only barely resembling its original shape)

That said, residential roads with poor sight lines are not the sort that encourage drivers to drive fast, even if they are curvy. The best are curvy roads with good sight lines.

Re-engineering a wide, straight, street to have more curves and whatnot is probably the cheapest sort to redesign. You don't remove the existing street so much as build over it in places with wide sidewalks, bumpouts, pedestrian islands, chicanes, and other obstacles that reduce sight lines and reduce the speed of the vast majority of vehicles.

The "Yale Hill" between 81st and 91st (south) was fun 30 years ago. 

These days, it gets old driving 10 under the speed limit.

Which I think is now 40 but used to be 50.

I thought it was 35 once you got up to those subdivision entrances. It's been a long time since I've been down that way, though. I could be misremembering. Either way, driving through that area in traffic is not particularly enjoyable. The only excitement comes when some jackass turning into the subdivision decides to panic stop when they decide oncoming traffic a quarter mile away will interfere with their left turn. ;)

Might be 35.  I think there is a yellow sign with either 30 or 35.  You know, yellow - at least 10 over what it says except in rain and snow.

It's interesting how road width affects speed.  Over the years, I've been caught speeding in places where the road design shouted "super-highway," while the speed limit signs stated 25 or 35 or whatever.  I get caught day-dreaming...my body is alert to the physical constraints of the road, but my brain doesn't read the signs.  It's happened a couple times that I can specifically remember thinking: if they don't want you to speed, they shouldn't build a frickin highway through town!  If you build extra-wide lanes, put in multiple lanes and have huge setbacks, people will speed.  Places like Owasso are prime examples.  Their arterial streets are as wide as interstates, and there's certainly no pedestrian traffic or even signs of human life (shops, playgrounds, bicycles) near the streets to remind you about other uses of the ROW.

These kind of roads keep drivers slow.

Our neighborhood was surprised today with about a dozen new speed humps.
No idea who requested them, and it apparently didnt go thru neighborhood contacts (of which I am one).

The humps arent on my street, but the traffic diverted from them is.  My street is now much less safe than it was this time yesterday.
Neighbors are livid the resources went to this and not to the potholes.

Sorry I thought you were talking about quick nooners.

I agree. The city could have added a bunch more potholes and that would have slowed down traffic even more.

Well, people are being screwed...

It looks like the city skipped a few of the steps in order to have this approved, such as involving the neighborhood.  You can apply to have it removed AFTER A YEAR and only if the city elects to consider the neighbors affected by the diverted traffic (and not just the people on the humped street).

It could be worse...maybe:

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

I'd bet that someone called and complained about traffic speeds.

Oh no,  Not Again...

(https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/barbara-hale-answers-the-phone-as-della-street-perry-masons-dedicated-picture-id526860726?k=6&m=526860726&s=612x612&w=0&h=3D_N8uwz_euedv-dEfvm0N-yHKoBjFdNAAF4WYTOzHs=)

Ill bet you are right, but before that someone pushes their problem off on their neighbors the neighbors are supposed to get an opportunity to address it, or at least be told.  24 speed humps should not just appear without the input of the affected residents.

You mistake what the government is here for.

Even the Simpsons know.   

Marge:    I thought you said the law was powerless.
Chief Wiggum:  Powerless to *help* you, not punish you.

Late at night.  Couple gallons diesel fuel and gasoline mix, poured all over the speed bump - the asphalt should help the process.  Light it up.  If lucky, enough degradation to require removal.   (Don't stick around with marshmallows, either!!)


Civil disobedience - "Stick it to the man, man...!!"


If that don't work, see if you can get some loaded dump trucks to drive through the neighborhood for a while...that will crumble everything, providing traffic calming as well as getting rid of bumps.

Policymakers may celebrate the speed bumps as evidence of their concern for homeowner and traffic safety, but more enlightened public employees might appreciate the negative externality that the speed bump becomes as nearby home values and qualities of life decline, if modestly. And everyone, everywhere, can safely claim that speed bumps slow emergency vehicle response times. Prospective new home buyers may reject out-of-hand the purchase of a home with a noteworthy speed bump nearby, contemplating the traversal of said impediment thousands of times during a typical ownership period.

The evidence suggested that as more speed bumps were traversed – after controlling for a multitude of other descriptive factors such as home size and age – home values declined. And the declination was not sensitive to the year of sale or the type of home. The homes examined sold, for the most part, at prices between $175,000 and $300,000 (the average was around $250,000), and each speed bump between the main drag and the house appeared to reduce home values by $5,000 or more.

http://www.wilmingtonbiz.com/insights/robert_t_burrus_jr/speed_bumps_reduced_speeds_and_lowered_housing_values/910

You should pay more attention to such things instead of Lighting and Cops....

As opposed to you and squirrels....

“So often I hear, ‘I didn’t even know we were getting speed bumps,’” Regan said.

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/who-will-replace-blake-ewing-as-district-city-councilor-voters/article_2a2cc1c9-d815-5e86-b9fe-4e3400b4ad53.html