Speed Bumps for Weston's Old Mill Road [POLL]

Old Mill Road and Cobbs Mill Road attract speeding drivers, and something should be done to deter such behavior before it’s too late and someone gets killed or seriously injured, residents of the roads told the Commission Tuesday night.

Greg Reilly, a father of two young kids who lives on Old Mill Road, told the commission that everyone in the room was in “agreement that the current situation can’t remain what it is.”

“We’ve got to do something that is going to drastically reduce the danger on this street,” he said. “I don’t want to see an accident that turns god forbid fatal before [something is done].”

Ali Farsun, who lives on Old Mill Road, told the commission they’ve heard this issue before but progress has not yet been made.

“[Monday] morning, around 8, 8:15, I was on my way to work and there was yet another car accident,” she said. “We’re very concerned with the volume of traffic and the speed of traffic on Old Mill Road.”

Farsun said when the road was originally constructed, engineers likely didn’t envision buses, trucks and SUVs barreling down the road.

“There are lots of young children on the street that have to wait for the school bus. Cars are coming dangerously fast. It’s a 15-mile-per-hour road,” Farsun said. “Cars are traveling way too fast — way, way too fast — and in some cases are catching air.”

Farsun said she, along with her band of neighbors, wanted to request a traffic study — documenting the road’s traffic volume and traffic patterns — “so we could all understand what’s going on.”

Police Commission Chairman Rick Phillips said the commission has studied this issue in the past and said that speed bumps, for example, are “not effective.”

“The car will indeed slow down for the speed bump, but within 100 feet, it’ll speed up again,” Phillips said.

A resident asked what the harm of installing speed bumps on the road was. The Department of Transportation has guidelines for that, which consider sightlines, width of the road and other factors when determining whether speed bumps can go on certain road, Phillips said.

“If a speed bump goes in, it’s not just the lump of asphalt, there are costs associated with having that speed bump for the rest of its life,” Phillips said.

Commissioner Hal Shupack suggested the police department put an electronic speed sign up at various points along the road to document information on traffic patterns and speed.

Chief John Troxell said the department, for starters, will begin running more radar on the roads, as residents offered their driveways for cruisers. Then what?

“The first thing that needs to be done is we need to identify trees that could be removed immediately,” he said. “That could be done pretty quickly,”

Troxell cautioned residents that the whole process couldn’t happen overnight.

“We understand exactly what you’re talking about,” he said, adding that a similar project on Ravenwood Drive took six to eight months to complete.