Letter to the Editor – Don O’Neill

Editor:

For communities experiencing excessive Traffic Speeding, they might consider resorting to Speed Bumps to slow down speeders. This approach warrants more thought.

Factors weighing against the use of Speed Bumps are many and include the following being experienced by Whetstone along Whetstone Drive:

Houses most affected
1. In our 447 house community, how many houses face on Whetstone Drive? An estimate could be about 15%. The actual count is 70-75 houses.

Cost of Speed Bumps
2. Depending on the number of Speed Bumps deployed, the estimated cost of $10,000-$30,000 would likely require an increase in Whetstone assessments.

Impact on cars
3. Riding over Speed Bumps repeatedly day after day would take a toll on Whetstone residents’ cars.

Impact on heavy government vehicles
4. Fire trucks and ambulances have great difficulty navigating over Speed Bumps. In addition, consider the heavily loaded trash trucks.

Issue quantification
5. And all this for a problem that has not been fully quantified.

Stop sign alternative

Another approach to consider would be Stop Signs instead of Speed Bumps.

Don O’Neill
Whetstone