Residents raise concerns about speeding

Residents in the neighborhood around East Hazelwood Avenue and Stockton Street, where the city earlier this year requested traffic-calming measures from Union County, raised concerns about speeding and traffic in the area.

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Several residents spoke during the public comment portion of the City Council’s Aug. 8 meeting detailing their concerns.

Resident Ronald McCray, a former mayoral candidate, questioned why speed bumps could not be installed on Stockton Street, as he’s seen them around the county and country. “Transparency to me means open and honest communication,” he said.

Other residents of the neighborhood reported numerous accidents and speeding, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, truck traffic, as well as middle-of-the-night accidents that could be prevented but bemoaned a lack of police presence despite a go-go bar in the area.

Laura Fernandes, a resident of Colonia Boulevard for 15 years, said speeding is a scourge in her neighborhood because it’s downhill and motorists often try to make a short-timed light.

City Administrator Jacqueline Foushee, a licensed engineer, said that speed humps can lead to delayed response for emergency vehicles, which have to slow down to pass them. Humps also impede stormwater flow. The city has provided Union County with traffic data and asked for permission for a four-way stop sign at Stockton or Witherspoon streets, she said, adding that the county has said it would provide a traffic signal instead.

In January, City Council approved a resolution in support of the county investigating whether a traffic signal is warranted at East Hazelwood Avenue and Stockton Street. East Hazelwood Avenue is a county road, which is why it would require county approval for a traffic signal or stop signs, similar to a process in 2018 that brought a four-way, solar-powered stop sign to the intersection of West Lake Avenue and Madison Avenue. That action came less than two weeks after a pedestrian was struck and killed trying to cross the street.