NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. Speed humps could be temporarily placed on residential streets around New Rochelle as part of a traffic and speed-focused program, according to Mayor Noam Bramson at last month's city council meeting.
The use of a temporary speed hump would be a way of gauging whether in fact it is a useful treatment in terms of calming traffic and whether the impacts end up being acceptable to the residents who are interested in potentially doing something on a permanent basis, Bramson said.
The non-federally funded program is not currently in the works, and it is not known if it will be as council members only discussed the item.
Concerns included whether or not legislative action was necessary, and whether the city or neighborhoods were responsible for paying for permanent speed humps should a temporary trial period work out. Bramson said that questions were held for City Manager Charles Strome because he is the one behind the program.
Following previous conversations with the city council, temporary speed humps were purchased for use in test locations since the city often receives many requests for permanent humps to be placed throughout New Rochelle.
In a meeting last week, Bramson said that after getting feedback from the city council on whether the program seems reasonable, the city would work on selecting specific streets to place the speed humps on this spring. Streets will be chosen based on how much interest there is for the program, an evaluation from the city traffic engineer to see if the area is eligible for the program, followed by an analysis of certain criteria like traffic and speed. Other streets would then wait their turn based on a priority list.
The program is meant to reduce the speed and traffic volume on residential streets using 7-foot wide synthetic rubber humps. New Rochelle Council member Shari Rackman asked if the humps could be damaged by school buses.
Bramson said the humps could not be damaged by the buses, but mentioned that they could delay emergency vehicles considering how fast they move. To offset this, the humps would not be used on main roads.
Council members Louis Trangucci and Jared Rice expressed concern about requiring neighborhoods to pay for the permanent humps, which cost between $2,000 and $3,000.
I think that it could be a hardship on some of the areas of the city with picking up for the permanent speed hump, said Trangucci.
Due to financial constraints, at most, two temporary speed humps can be installed for any one project, city officials said. After a three-month trial period, the temporary speed humps will be removed and permanent speed humps would then be installed on the street that ranks the highest based on the program. The city has estimated that a minimum of three neighborhoods every year will have the humps installed.
The effectiveness of the installed permanent speed humps would be evaluated after the humps have been installed for at least a year.
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