Speeding through Morningside

We have a problem with cars speeding through our neighborhood. Some of it is drivers trying to shave a few seconds off a trip by avoiding the light at Morningside and Highland; sometimes they are avoiding utility work on Morningside (when they were working on Highland, the Coldwell-Banker outdoor sign said "Whatever they are digging for, we hope they find it soon"); sometimes it's just our neighbors driving too fast. Wessyngton Road is wider than some of the older streets in the neighborhood and even when there are cars parked on both sides of the street it still feels like the wide open spaces, at least compared to other streets in Morningside.

Our neighbor Tim requested a traffic study, to see if we would qualify for speed bumps. They did the study and we failed - no speed bumps for us. In the absence of help from the city, we are on our own. I personally have been known to relocate fallen tree branches to make them easier for the city to find when they come round to pick them up. For a while we had natural inverted speed bumps (also known as potholes), which did tend to slow down the traffic, but with the regular digging up of the street and frequent repaving, the street is now smooth enough for roller skating. Tom and Dan had discussed in the past creating some potholes, when it seemed like there weren't enough to be effective, but as far as I know they never did it. As far as I know.

PEDS (http://www.peds.org/) is a local advocacy group that works on pedestrian safety and accessibility issues. I don't know if they get the credit for it or not, but those "State Law Requires Drivers to Stop for Pedestrians in Crosswalks" signs that are at many of the crosswalks in the neighborhood now at least are a visible reminder to drivers to stop for pedestrians.

And of course, enforcement would be nice. Lack of enforcement tempts otherwise Law-Abiding Citizens to Take the Law into Their Own Hands. There are stories of flung objects - coffee-cups, usually, but also those ubiquitous blue plastic bags (you know the ones). If the car gets close enough to you that you can touch it, it seems like you should be able to defend yourself. We were walking to the Virginia-Highlands SummerFest last year, and a car didn't stop for us in the crosswalk. Tom felt the need to get the driver's attention and kicked the car. This was witnessed by an Atlanta police officer who seemed more concerned about the state-law-violating car (not damaged) than the narrowly averted pedestrian casualties (us). This was last year; maybe it's better now.

PEDS has a nice flyer on their website about how to take action against neighborhood speeding (http://www.peds.org/pdf/Slow_Down_Flyer.pdf). According to them, if hit by a vehicle travelling 20 miles per hour, 9 out of 10 pedestrians will survive. It goes down to 5 out of 10 at 30 miles per hour and 1 out of 10 at 40 miles per hour. The speed limit in our neighborhood is 25 miles per hour. The flyer lists 9 things we can all do slow down the cars in our neighborhoods; tearing up the street is not among the recommended solutions, but one thing they suggest is using a radar gun to monitor speed. They have one that can be borrowed, or they say that one can be purchased for less than $100. I told Tom I wanted one for Christmas. (He said I could probably just point a hairdryer at the cars and it would have the same effect. Sounds like a good experiment.)

When Caroline was born, there were no other kids on our street; now, there are lots of them, including several that are still in diapers and more on the way. The demographic shifts in the neighborhood are dramatic, and of course that's why they are building a new elementary school nearby (the new school zone for which is not yet on the APS website - at least not at the URL that was sent out last week). There are skateboarders and bicycles and rollerbladers in our street. There are runners and joggers and walkers. There are people with dogs and people with strollers. And every car that comes down our street too fast potentially puts people that I love in danger.

Any ideas?