RE: Advice on traffic calming, anyone?

Michael Schramm wrote:
>The neighborhood association in the subdivision I reside in will soon
>be staging a regularly scheduled quarterly meeting. In view of the
>observances I've made on motorist habits here I've spoken with the
>president and requested that he make traffic calming a top agenda
>item. He fortunately agreed and informed me the issue has come up
>before--but I think his reception to the idea was piqued when he told
>me of his recent incident--a driver actually went around his car and
>sped on through an intersection as he was decelerating for a posted
>stop sign.

Scary.

>Let me briefly describe the situation in my neighborhood for you:
>Approximately 150 homes are situated in proximity to an 18 hole golf
>course, many of which are lined along the fairways. 

How often are houses ever struck by golf balls?

>Garages are not
>allowed to face the street, there are a number curvilinear streets
>with cul-de-sacs and streets are relatively free of parked cars. Now
>here's the paradox to that innate visceral sense that automobiles are
>blight on the landscape: The neighborhood completely lacks sidewalks,
>has a 35 mph speed limit and the streets are VERY wide. 

It doesn't seem as if it would be to hard to put in sidewalks.

>The end
>result as you might surmise is that motorists have total reign
>here--there are very few pedestrians and bicyclists about and
>certainly no children present. Motorists enjoy a completly
>unobstructed view and can easily drive 40 to 45 mph (which I often
>see) along the main artery. 

Is that 35 mph speed limit ever enforced? 

>I recently asked a neighborhood patrol volunteer why no sidewalks. 
>His response was simply "we didn't want them". 

To me that seems quite odd.

>My response to him was that this is why everyone feels car
>patrolling is needed, everyone is shut inside their "sensory
>deprivation chamber" that passes for a home. Had their been measures
>taken to instill a community bond, i.e. wide sidewalks, speed bumps,
>vegetated medians to restrict driver vision, etc., we could enjoy a
>safe, livable community where people would associate with one another.
>He looked at me like I came from the Moon...

C'est vie.

>Anyway, if anyone on this forum has advice to share when I address the
>issue on traffic calming, I would much appreciate it. Oh, nearly
>forgot, the residents who were SO OPPOSED to the installation of three
>neighborhood stop signs (reluctantly put in when motorists were seen
>driving at 55 mph) are now the biggest champions of auto speed
>abatement.

You might want to check out this URL. Dawson
http://pti.nw.dc.us/task_forces/transportation/docs/trafcalm/