City Council - Regular Meeting

Uh my name is city councelor Lavar Click Bruce, board five. Um I'm calling this meeting to order. Uh we're having a public discussion on raised crosswalks in our school areas. Um and u calling this meeting to order. It is uh now 5:00 on the dot. Um and before I do so, I apologize. Oh, actually he's coming in now. Waiting on my other colleague, Michael Fencson who just joined us. Mr. Speed Hump.

So yes, this meeting is now in session. Um, I did uh meet with uh uh Miss Betsy Johnson. She brought this to my attention where she wanted to bring some awareness regarding some uh speed humps and raised crosswalks. And um I did tell her I would host a meeting to to start the discussion. I noticed there were some past discussions in the past that I weren't privy to. Um and you all may have some knowledge to it. Um, but we wanted to have a discussion to see where or if this makes sense. Um, and um, kind of get our uh, our school department and DPW in the room and then we have some residents that are here as well. I'll also go around to see if everybody here can just introduce themselves. So, we have a record um, on on file here. Starting to my left.

How you doing? My name is Dennis Coleman. Part of that team that's on the screen there, transportation department. Start. Chris Signnoli, DPW director, Sheila Mway, W six.

Jeremy Cole, W six, uh, on Merit Street, right near the Washington School. uh Betsy Johnson um from on downtown Matun Street uh but with WalkBike Springfield and who was previously working with uh councelor Fenton to um h get come up with ways that the city could start to install speed humps, speed tables, speed raised crosswalks as just one of the different mechanisms we need to do to slow down people in this city and the the issue related to the

Sorry, Betsy, before you go on, I'm sorry. Let me just uh let me get I got Liam from Walk by Springfield. We have Counselor Fenton. We have Rick and his whole team there. Sorry. Um Deb Duncan and Chris Coleman. Deb and who's the other one? Sorry. Chris Coleman. Okay. Chris, how you doing? Deb, good. How are you? Good. All right. So, I'm sorry. The floor is yours. Oh, Chris, I sent you an email with some suggestions that Bessie has sent to me. I meant to send to you.

Yeah. And I have a few more copies of what this goes back to um after the uh council worked worked out, Mike worked out with Chris uh a ordinance to enable neighborhoods to be able to um uh petition for speed humps in their neighborhood. Um some of them have been actually some some the process is a bit difficult for certain unless the streets configured a certain way. Um but and then we heard back that you know from the engineering department that some of them have got put in and gotten feedback back and they sort of said you know wouldn't it be better if the engineering department actually you know, pushed forward the um some of the um the the suggestions and that's where we came. But then meanwhile, sort of in the same time period this was happening, one of the crossing guards was killed. Another one not too long afterwards was severely injured. And this is where, okay, one of the places maybe we really should start with getting some kind of speed humps, speed raised crosswalks is by some of the schools. And I think it was with uh Rick Eer who helped mastermind getting me the suggest well at that point I was working with our my ward one school committee member um who's no you know who no is no longer on the school committee but he helped work with you to come up with suggestions and I brought some copies of you know where what might be some of the main I think you really looked at where are some of the crosswalks that have crossing guards

where we'd also really like to send the signal, slow down people. And so then, but then the issue is how do we now make this happen? Uh how do we, you know, prioritize these? How do where do we find the money, you know, um to and we learned that other uh cities have made have established actually an ordinance for saying when these things happen, these things must happen now. Um, yeah. Sorry. What was your name again? I'm Deborah Huber. Okay. I'm on Walk Springfield with

Betsy. Todd's in the back. Um, so we're hoping that we can figure out how to get these things to happen. And if we can get the city council to support and actually strike up an ordinance, then that would tell DPW what needs to happen on the, you know, instead of us begging and pleading every time come up with an idea. My thought was um with this list of schools that have intersections they would like to have better accommodations to um is to basically make that kind of ordinance uh something that says when you work first off when you work on those streets at all you need to put in a raised crosswalk for the schools with some sort of distance for all crosswalks around the schools because right now it's just not safe for our kids to be out walking and riding.

All right. So, uh, thank you for that. Uh, Rick or, uh, Chris, you guys want to jump in or Rick? Yeah. So, so yeah, we provided this list. Um, I I want to say it was about a year ago with Mr. Gonzalez. Okay. Two years. Okay. Mr. uh school committee Gonzalez uh we were working collaboratively to get this list. Um so we do have the list that we can send you uh Lavar if if you would like.

Um and like I said anything to promote safe uh crossing and for our cross crossing guards and students uh you know we we definitely would like to collaborate in any way that we can. Um, so all right. So Rick, that's your stance on it. Something that you'll something that you Well, I don't know if you coming out and saying that. Do you recommend or you're you're kind of saying uh taking a stance where you're going to see what we're going to do first or

Yeah. I mean, we'll we'll uh we're going to we're going to follow the team. Obviously, we're a proponent of this because is is it, you know, it's enhancing the safety of our students, uh, pedestrians, and, you know, just the local community. So, um, I know we put this list together. I'm pretty sure there's going to have to be some sort of phase approach, uh, to this list. Um, but yeah, anything that you guys need from the school side, you know, be here to support on that end. All right. Thank you, Rick. You're welcome. Now, Chris from logistics and I know cost. I know it's not cheap. Uh what is your uh what I guess what are your thoughts? Should

Well, never mind. I'm I'm looking at the list here. There is no way in God's earth we're putting speed bumps on arterial streets. No way. Absolutely positively. Which streets again? I'm sorry. Well, I'm looking here. Armory, Belmont, Boston Road. Yeah.

Uh Bolts Park and East Street. Forget that one for a second. Brewood, Karu, Chestnut, Dickinson, Dwight, Main Street, uh, State, Sumar Avenue, um, Wilberham Road. Um, we have added crosswalks on a number of these locations. We have three more going in this year at three locations in the city. Um, one is on Bernie Avenue. The second is Belmont Avenue at I've drawn a blank on at Woodlon. Belmont at Woodlon. And the third one is Birkshshire Avenue at Ali Street. That's being uh redone, stop signs, etc. Um we have three that we're making applications for in the next month through the mass um shared streets program for hopefully we get the money to be able to do that for next year. Um and on and I'm I'm just looking through the list here a little bit. um speed hump, speed bump, speed tables, whatever we want to call them, depending upon where they are, uh have to be certain distances from intersections. Um and just as speed bumps in general, this year I lost two contractors plowing because they refuse to plow. They're not plowing streets that have speed bumps on them. They will have

How about raised crosswalks though? They don't want touch. They don't want anything to do with them even where they're because they're not they're along your distance. Well, it's a longer distance and and they and but and and all that it does is damage their equipment. All it does is damage their equipment. So, this is a mystery to me because Chapi has raised cross plots be taped. That's Springfield dust. Holio as in Holio. They have wonderful. So, so what makes Springfield so special that the plow trucks don't work here and they complain about it here, but they don't complain about it in other places?

Because every other town does it themselves. We hire contractors. So, so it still makes no sense to me that we're the only city that can't get speed tables in. We have the highest pedestrian deaths and we've come here to talk about speed tables and you raised crosswalks. So, let's just keep it on this and let's keep it about schools

and let's think about how can we have how can we slow traffic down with speed tables around schools and crosswalks. How can we make our pedestrians and our residents safer? And I don't think there's any I mean sure practically there's cost issues but if our priorities are right this will happen we can make this happen the um I was going to say for a second the uh safety uh around schools I am 100% behind you on that um we are starting to work in a number of locations that we have two active safe routes to school projects. One of them is in is in construction right now for Rebecca Johnson school. The other one will be for uh Bulls Park School. That's why I said BS Park East Street. That is going to be redone as well. That is mass DOT at this point. Um, we have installed probably 20 locations, 30 locations in the past year where we've added stop signs to slow traffic down. Uh, the most recent one, uh, Parker Street, White Oak, Wooie Street. My phone has not has been ringing off the hook, swearing at me. Who the hell are you to do that? And I'm like, it went before the traffic commission. It was a request. The neighborhood association is screaming at us. Who the

hell are you to put up stop signs? And I'm like, we we're putting up stop signs to slow traffic down. We did it on Forest Park Avenue and we've in Well, yeah. You didn't have to deal with three weeks worth of getting sworn at by residents. Oh, absolutely. I was threatened by a former city employee. We hear from the people who love it. Well, I hear from the people who hate it. I had my city employee threatened to kill me.

Threatened to kill me because who are you to put up stop signs? And I'm like, it came from the neighborhood association uh in front of and just in that sort of thing. We installed uh I think it was the well, it's the state state money uh four-way stop signs and the latest one is Springfield Street where we looked at a number of options and what we've been leaning for or leaning towards, excuse me, is stop signs more than anything else. A, it's cheating. Number one, and you get to see how traffic responds to it. Springfield Street, as an example, in the area of Casein and Cunningham, there's going to be a stop sign there. I think that was in front of the traffic commission a couple weeks uh last month. So, that will get done at that location and at Armory and Springfield Street. So, it that's going to be a four-way. So, what we have been doing a lot is using stop signs that the the general public hates, absolutely positively hates because they slow down. They they do not want to slow down. Now, Forest Park Avenue, as an example, five, six months later, everybody loves it because they're used to it and everybody who lives on that street is like, "Hey, the traffic has slowed down." Parker Street in that particular area. The issue is safe distance because we've had a couple accidents there and it's all because of sight distance, too much vegetation, private property, etc. So, what we have been doing uh and I guess the best one to me was the section of Parker Street that we went from four lanes to two lanes. Um that has slowed traffic down on that road uh wonderfully. There's still people who speed but um in general terms it has slowed traffic down. We are going to be initiating um the SS4A project which we are finally starting design. We finally got our contract that is going to be

looking at major corridors 15 intersection major uh 11 corridors 12 10 corridors excuse me around the city where we're going to be doing things like that. um Sar Avenue as an example from D uh Dorset to roughly rough I'm going to say roughly where it ties into Allen Street is going to be turned into the same sort of thing as Parker Street, one lane in the middle. Page Boulevard uh from O'Brien's Tavern to Burch uh is going to have the exact same thing done there. That's obviously a speedway and that will start to slow traffic down the river as well. We're not carrying that farther because farther down the hill at Brookdale in the new park. Um there's supposed to be some traffic signals going in there and I don't know what the configuration and length of storage lanes needs to be there uh for that. They just redid the park and as part of the park they're supposed to be doing traffic signals. So there's supposed to be some signals there. The other one that we're going to be doing, Roosevelt Avenue and Roosevelt Terrace. Um that location has been notorious for accidents. Um not and there's injuries. There's um I don't think there's been a fatality. Um but the speed of cars on on um Roosevelt Avenue is just too much. That intersection is going to get redone, but basically back towards the arch of State Street overpass and probably through the Blunt Park Road intersection is going to end up being the same thing. Uh not necessarily the roadway. Well, that may be a little different. Um doing some actual roadway narrowing. When I say roadway nor, I'm talking about curbs and things like that. But um we're going to be um uh doing the same thing there,

getting rid of getting rid of lanes. And from a general standpoint on roads, um that's what we're trying to do. We're going to be paving um the upper se I call it the upper section of Parker Street between North Branch Parkway and uh Boston Road as part of the paving program that we're with that. We got to go in front of the council on Tuesday. Um, and section the remaining section of Parker Street, we're looking at trying to figure out what we're gonna what we're if we have enough room to do something there. But the other one we're looking at is Sumar Avenue Extension. Um, because we're we're looking at some of the roadways where we're having extreme chronic problems with potholes every year, every year of year. And Worthington Street is one of them. Uh so Worthington Street from Armory is going to get repaved and on every one of those streets um we are will be putting in whatever bike accommodations that we can put in and I say whatever it really depends on how the width of the roadway what we're going to do and you know uh so when we get on to streets like uh Roosevelt Avenue and Sumar Avenue and we do that um uh restriping uh you know with full bike lanes buffers cuz we the room to be able to do it. Uh on the roads where we don't have the room, I'm going to say Worthington's probably one of those that there may not be the room to do it, but um you know, definitely sherrows and all that sort of stuff as well. So on all of these roadways where we're doing paving, especially on the arterial streets, we're going to be doing all the accommodations. Um we've had a very good up and I say good uptick. I was not a fan. Well, there's there's two things. The MUTCD for years was basically saying you don't use stop signs for speed control. Um that has changed a number of a number of two three four years ago. Uh that has

kind of changed. Um I my wife is from East Harartford, Connecticut. I lived there for I went there was there a lot of times. East Harford's one of those streets that when you drive residential streets, it's like every intersection is a stop sign. Threeway stop, three-way stop, three-way stop. and it's you're just you're you're you get frustrated.

Uh but on on what we've been incorporating on these streets as we go along and I'm I'm using Springfield Street as an example and Mike's on so Mike re Mike knows what we were what we were talking about there. We were looking at raised crosswalks um uh beacons all these other things and it was basically it came back to let's just put in a stop sign and see how that works. If it works, I mean, wonderful. And it's no cost. Basically, you're putting in a stop sign. If it works and it's slowing traffic down, wonderful. And then if there is a next thing that we need to do, um, you know, on on on different streets, uh, definitely open to do it. The speed, the tables, um, if they're done correctly, I like them. I really do. What I don't like about them though is um we really need to do uh bumpouts for them.

Uh because when you when the road and I'm I'm I I don't remember the number. When the road is over a certain width and you do the beacons, you have to have a median in the middle, a refuge area. So what you do to get around that is you bring the curb in at the crosswalk. So it's you're really only crossing the lanes. You're not crossing the gutters. The problem with that is once you do that bump out, it affects drainage. So you got to cuz the drainage is in the gutter. So you got to move catch basins. And those bumpouts average somewhere probably $300,000 for each one of those locations that that we do cuz those those we're putting in are have the RRFB beacons and those are the blinking yellow ones. Um, and you have to have you're basically having four of them. There's two double-sided ones that have to be on either side, and it all depends on vegetation, making sure you can see it. Um, and as I said, the three locations that we're putting those in this summer, uh, the SS4A, uh, as I mentioned, we just got the contract back about three weeks ago from the Federal Highway Administration. And so our designers are working and uh we we are some of these locations we're going to be doing the enhanced crosswalks there. Bumpouts, not necessarily raised crosswalks, but pumpouts, beacons, um uh in a lot of these locations. Uh Sumar Avenue as an example. I want to say Eddiewood Street area. Um, we're going to be putting in those crosswalks with the beacons and uh cuz I know we're doing we're doing Sar Avenue, Main Street, Karu, Page Boulevard, State Street, um, a bunch of those. A lot of the stuff on Straight State Street is more signal upgrades, um, backings, uh,

reflective backings and things like that. So, a lot of the safety stuff that we're doing, we're doing very very incrementally with different um different means. And I've been very happy with the response to the stop signs. I've also been very happy with the response like we did on Parker Street with the uh slowing of the speeds there with the one lane. The neighborhood hated it. I think me and you were at that first meeting where they were yelling and screaming at us. Came around. Well, it it it's it's one of those you just get used to it, you know. You may or may not like it. You get used to it, but you know, you are you can only go as fast as the the slowest car. We should let Mike

Yeah. So, it's But I wanted to let everyone know there's of of the stuff that we have in the hopper that we are looking at around the city. Very involved with the safe seat safe SS the Yeah, the Well, the SS4A has been extremely frustrating. We a year and a half to get that. No, I I was I been talking with Andy ridiculously on that. Ridiculous on that. We finally got it. But Chris, can you So, you have this list and I know you said some most of them you're already doing. So, we're going to be doing something in and around. A lot of those. Yes. Modify and let us know like the ones that in and around that you're doing. So, that way we can kind of keep an eye on that as well.

All right. I'm gonna uh give the floor to councelor uh Fenton. me unmute. Hi, thank you uh Mr. Chair. I just wanted to uh say that I appreciate the testimony that's been given. Betsy, Todd, Deb, they're right that we worked for a long time on getting the speed hump ordinance together. Um Chris is right that our first one that was installed, we were really enthusiastic about it, thought it was a great location, had neighborhood support, had neighborhood council support. It it's been in for less than 6 months and um it has been uh really negatively received um by the residents overall. There's been there's been a ton of really negative and emotional response to the speed bump and um it's made it very difficult um to proceed with further deployment. That's the first one we've done using the residential petition process. Um, so I'm I must admit that I'm discouraged by that and um that that has had an unfortunate chilling effect on the further deployment of uh other similarly situated speed bumps. With respect to the Springfield Street proposal, I'm glad that Chris raised that because I'll just share with you my personal experience on that. in the last two years. Uh I've been working on traffic mitigation solutions for a decade on that street and uh really the last two years has been the largest focus since we've had the um the change in approach for speed bumps in the city. We have explored not less than five to six different

uh uh plans for how to uh mitigate speed with devices in the road uh including rumble strips, raised crosswalks, uh light lit crosswalks, unlit crosswalks, speed bumps, islands in the road, inserting bike lanes, shrinking uh the the driving lane to reduce speed, uh speed boards. Those are just like off the top of my head things that we've explored and we went to the neighborhood and Bay State um which with each of these proposals and uh I and another proposal that we also looked at was turning a particular street into a oneway, making it so that it couldn't be turned down. Um, so I mean basically every tool available to us in the toolbox was explored for speed mitigation particularly on Springfield Street between uh Armory Street and Chestnut. That was the main focus and uh and there was there was without exception uh opposition from immediate impacted neighbors to each of those proposals. um people concerned about noise, people concerned about uh accident, people concerned about proximity to their driveway. And um you know I guess the word that I would use um the two words that come to mind is it's been uh it's been frustrating um to try to to try to navigate that uh successfully because the city government doesn't want to spend taxpayer dollars

um that are designed to make quality of life improve. approved for folks and then dictate to those same folks that we're professing to make their lives better uh make them incredibly upset and frustrated in the process. We don't want to spend boatloads of money on doing that and then um have people who are really upset with the overall result. And I was I was really surprised. I was frankly I was really surprised at a lot of the opposition that we received given um prior feedback regarding speeding and the desire for humps. So, so in the end, despite having access to resources, despite having um committed uh budgetary capability to spend a quarter of a million dollars on speed humps in the right ofway, um the neighborhood on its own decision decided to abandon those plans despite having the access to resources and the willingness to explore it from the city. Um and and we've proceeded with uh two speedboards and two stop signs. Uh sort of similar to what's happened on Force Park A. I'm not saying that's the right solution for everybody. Uh and I'm not saying that speed bumps don't have a place and raised crosswalks don't have a place in the city. They certainly do. Um but when I when I started this crusade uh my focus was on getting these deployed into the right of way with an expectation that there was there was definitely I thought a a a you know a desire strong desire for this in neighborhoods and um and I'm sure there still is in a lot of places but I I I do want to express to the advocates of

which I consider myself one. Um that there is definitely an undercurrent of opposition to this work that doesn't really present itself at these meetings and does it present itself until the work is done or is about to be done. And that was my experience on Bington Drive where the first one was done. And that was also my experience in Atwater Park where the opponents didn't appear until we knocked on their doors and handed out flyers and said, "Hey, here's where the speedome's going to go." And a whole bunch of hell nos came back. So, um, I just wanted to thank Chris for that um, work, that hard work. I don't want to kill you, Chris. You shouldn't be threatened. You don't deserve that. I'm sorry that that happened. Not I don't mean to

say that now. I don't mean I mean maybe maybe figuratively I want to kill you. Not acting like you, but uh nobody should have to endure that type of uh that type of uh of language. And I'm sorry that you've had to go through that, but um I I think that the reason we're here, not to be too uh lengthy, but the reason we're here is that we all agree that speeding is a huge issue. I think it's the number one quality of life issue in the city. and and the noise that's related to it. They go part and parcel. It's a number one issue and um I'm I'm committed to working on it. Uh and and finding the right solutions. I am excited to see what the speed uh what the stop signs are going to yield and if they don't work then, you know, we'll be back at the table coming up with other solutions. But that was that was just my personal experience in the last two years. And I know that a lot of the advocates probably haven't heard that from me because um those are new developments, but I wanted to share my experience in that regard. Thank you.

All right, two hands. Are these questions for Mike or you just have comments? Because if you have comments All right, so I'm going to councelor de Davilla because he hasn't spoke yet. Councelor Davilla.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um and thank you for holding this meeting. Uh Chris, um thank you for your presentation. Uh let me give you a little bit of a a perspective on my side. Uh also what's happening with the speed bumps. I just had a request actually an inquiry about two days ago of putting um speed bumps on Eton Street. And once I explained to her the process to my constituent the process uh they like the idea but they were a little hesitant with the amount of signatures that I require because it's a process of requiring signatures. So, we're still exploring that option and as councelor Fenton just say, I'm sure that there are still the city more people that are uh inclined or might be once they learn more about the speedit bombs uh open to the process, but is the intent to suspend the speed bumps uh or to replace them with uh stop signs or what what's the intent right now?

You're talking counselor about the existing ordinance? Uh yes. Are we are we intending to scrap that ordinance and replace it with stop signs or what are we what exactly are we doing?

Uh no not that no I there as far as I know there is no intent to scrap the ordinance. It is um the the discussion has kind and and correct me if I'm wrong, Michael, because I'll uh uh go back to you. When we were having the discussions way back about the original ordinance, the idea of speed bumps, we really were were not discussing arterial streets. We were discussing uh I'm going to say use the word residential cutthrough streets. and and we were always and and as an example in you know Mike's area you know a street like Cunningham Street where everybody cuts through andor Case it was the type of street where everybody was looking at as a um you know from a neighborhood perspective hey everybody who's driving up and down the street they don't live here they're going 50 miles an hour why do I have to deal with it and that was the whole idea of the ordinance speed bumps smallcale on a residential street. Uh yeah, the ordinance right now I don't think we have any intent right now of getting rid of it. But what we are also looking at at the same time is when a resident like as you mentioned Victor uh as a resident makes that sort of request, we try to also elevate it into the neighborhood association as well because they're going to have to get there anyways from a discussion standpoint. So we look at it sort of in a broader context that all right we're going to put a speed bump on this particular street in this particular location and so what that really does is solve a problem for 500 ft 250 ft each way

right have a bigger problem in the neighborhood where something else can be done and that was specifically what ended up happening on Force Park Avenue where the discussion with the neighborhood group morphed from uh let's do speed bumps hey let's do a speed table let's raise the intersection to let's just try uh stop signs and see if it works. So that's kind of that was kind of the morph, but I don't think we are intending at this point to get rid of the ordinance.

Okay. Thank you. Uh and so Chris, um I have to agree that one of the biggest issues we have here in terms of quality of life is um uh traffic and speeding and especially now that we're about to hit spring. Uh I just saw like 30 bicycles on Sar Avenue uh two days ago and so um I'm sure the police going to be following up on that eternal problem that we have with the bicycle with the motorcycles rather.

Uh and so but Chris, I'm going to give send you an email. I have had some request uh for the traffic commission. Um I am not getting any response from the engineering in the traffic commission. Uh, and I need a response to my inquiries and so I'm going to to be talking to you offline because um, you know, I I feel like it's radio silence right now. Yeah. Yeah. No, send that stuff to me and I'll I'll I'll look at it and see what's going on. All right. Thank you, Chris. Uh, thank you.

Thank you, counselor. Yes. Um, so to the point of the upset of the neighbors, um, or the willingness to come along after a while, uh, the road, uh, changes on Parker Street. Yeah. There's a lot of crap coming out on Facebook. People are really still annoyed and bit but but um, one of the biggest complaints about this White Oak stop sign, Yep. is they felt they got no notice, which is the same thing they said about Parker Street. Yep.

Okay. I think if we would improve the notice, it might help. Although I do agree it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission. Um and so part of it is put it in, but at the same time it goes in. We need to tell people and I haven't looked at that one, but I know the ones that went in on for uh for Forest Park A. Yep. They initially, to my knowledge, had no warning. You drove up and went right through them because that's what you're used to doing. We talked with Andy Crabike Springfield traffic commission too.

We we talked to them to Andy and we've now talked with Hector Y because Hector kind of is the sign organizer person. Y and what we've recommended is the way the state did it at St. James A and Thompson. Yep. Was they originally they have three three signs. Yep. A traffic pattern change it has changed sign warning. Then the stop sign ahead sign which is now just an icon kind of thing. Yeah. And then the stop sign. Uh and we are saying that when we're going to throw up a stop sign. We cannot just throw it up. We have to even if it's just sandwich board signage.

Yep. temporarily to get people aware that it's coming and they need to stop. They need that extra signage. So, two to three warnings, you know, before you get there. And I suspect that this white oak, which I've told people on Facebook, um was that this one scooted in before and we only talked with Hector a month ago. Yeah. So, I I I'm hoping that DPW as the implementers will do that and we haven't I got no problem with that.

We haven't talked to you. It needs to happen. And so that's why I'm bringing that up is that we need those warning signs. And the same thing when you were making a big change to um the traffic flow. New traffic pattern ahead. Uh slow your butts down. Yeah. Did we tell you there's a new traffic pattern ahead? Pay attention. Here it is. you know, as many warnings as possible is really important. And um as far as the speed boards go, they really should not be being put up without the existing speed limit within view of them. Mhm. Because most of them are not the ones that say slow down,

right? They're the ones that just show you your speed. Yeah. And so that would be another thing if if they're coming through you guys is let's make sure whether it's visible or or it's you know it it's visible close enough you can see a sign when you're looking at the speedboard or to add a sign.

Yeah. Yeah. I got no problem with that. They should in a lot of locations. And just from a from a notification standpoint, a lot of the bigger ones that we do come through the neighborhood associations. They come through the neighborhood associations and we're having two or three months worth of discussions before it even goes to the traffic commission. And um you know the Forest Park Avenue was was a great one. we go through and a lot of the comments that I got were, "Hey, nobody told me about this." Not not talking about, "Hey, I can't see the signs. I didn't know there. Why didn't we say anything about this?" It's like, well, it was discussed at two neighborhood association meetings. Uh it's at the uh traffic commission. Um it was sent out, you know, well, you send it out to the neighborhood. In that particular case, BATA um was dealing with it. Um what and I brought it up. I was meeting with PVPC on some stuff yesterday. Getting information out to people now is very very difficult.

Um, you know, websites, who looks at websites, you know, you're getting 10% of the people. Facebook, you might get 15% of the people. Next door, you get the same 15%. I was making a joke with somebody. What the city used to do every Sunday is there was some sort of flyer in the Sunday paper that had three or four things on it. you know, household hazardous waste, when does yard waste start, all this sort of stuff, you nobody reads the paper anymore. You can't bury stuff in the legal notices on stuff like that. So, when we get the information out as much as we can, I'm just talking about the information, not the signage or anything like that. So we get as much of that out as we can and you know we ask neighborhood associations to and a lot of these we a lot of these if a request comes from the resident we are asking most of them and I I used the one Bington as an example

um every how how not to pick on Lavar but because you were involved in the email chain how many emails did we get saying when the hell are you going to put these things in you know and it was just because it was costing at that particular point, but when you going to put it in finally when it happens, it's like, you know, it was like everybody who signed the petition was like, "Well, we don't like it now. Take it out." Yeah, I know. And I'm like, "Well, wait a minute. You know, we just spent 50 grand. Now I got to spend 25 taking them out." And you voted for it and 50 grand for a speed bump.

Well, what we did is we put it into our paving program. And just because we're not going to be able to to do it, we put it into our paving program that said, "Hey, you got to do all of this work, mill out, because we're not going to just pave over the street. We're going to mill it out because whether it's a plow or whatever, we don't want it to pull up." So, we're locking it in. You also have to put all the signs.

The other thing people are mad about when you're doing those, you got to have some no parking. And uh we we in the ordinance we also say it's got to be so many feet from driveways cuz people we what people didn't want to do you're backing out of your driveway and you're having to go over a speed hump and stuff like that. So trying to locate it in some cases is very difficult. That was the issue with sports park a is everything's kind of off. If I I I just want if I could Mr. Chair butt in for a second if it's okay. Yes.

Yeah. I I just I don't find myself corroborating with Chris all that often, so I feel compelled to do it when it's warranted. I mean, I and and and to councelor Davila's earlier point about people getting discouraged about how hard the application is. I mean, anybody that spoke to me, Betsy or Deb will verify. I when we did this, I I made this intentionally a very high bar. I mean, it's twothirds. You need twothirds of the signatures on the street. You got to get signatures from people that are impacted on parallel streets. You can't be within 10 feet of a of a driveway. You need a neighborhood council vote. You need a city council vote. You need a board of public works vote. You need a public hearing at the site. Um you need a 90-day trial period. We did all of that. We crossed every tea and dotted every eye for that Bington um for that Bington speed bump. And um and despite that and despite all the people who have come to me over the last few years and said, you know, I'd like to look at one. We looked at one on Cunningham Street and you know, they went whole group. Oh, everyone's going to love the speed bump. And they went to go get the signatures. They got everybody on Cunningham Street to sign and they came to me and they said, "Well, it's not done because you got to get the parallel street. You got to get Casein because you got to make sure that it's not going to have traffic flow pushed to Casein." they couldn't get the signatures on Casein because people didn't want it. And um and so I guess my point is not to beat a dead horse, but it's that we created a process that was intentionally laborious, intentionally hard, a high bar, not an impossibly high bar, but a high bar. And uh and and even when it was met, um there was substantial change of heart is what I would describe it as after the fact. And um and that makes it really hard. It makes it really hard to fight for

investing in this stuff. I got to be honest because of the obvious dynamic that I just described. You were gonna say something. I I had two questions. First of all, I want to ask Chris, you said that you had two plow contractors who pulled out because of the speed bumps. Yeah. And how many plow contractors do you have overall? 7500. So that was which was 87 short of what you needed. Yeah, we I need I want I want and when I first started in 2014, I had 150, right, private contractors, right? And I haveund 153, I think, my for my years. 2020 it's dropped down. The last three or four years we've been at 100.

So So you lost two of those. Yeah. Yeah. And they lost because they damaged their equipment, right? Is what they did. So but but the rest of them stuck with it. Well, the the issue is is that those are the ones that work in that neighborhood. Ah okay.

Because we have it the city not to talk about snow. I don't even want to talk about snow anymore. Uh but um what we have is the city's split up into 15 sections for snow and contractors get assigned to those sections. So the contractors that are in certain sections are like you know and some of them say I don't want to plow whatever street because there's cars parked on both sides, you know, You're going to plow the street. Um so in this particular case, so the ones that are in that neighborhood um said, you know, I'm not going to my my plow got damaged. I'm not going to do it anymore. So then we have to move some some equipment around. And you know when we mentioned Bington, we had temporary ones in there for

eight months. Everybody loved it. Everybody loved it. And then all of a sudden you put the permanent one and it's like we ate it. And people who signed Yeah. Like I said, I'm not to talk about. But we did there was one other that we installed that was on Dubo Street. Uh and Duboce is um uh Paige Boulevard, Pasco Road. um uh across the I'm trying to think what's over there. Rick's or uh not Rick's auto body, but across the street from Rick's in that neighborhood. Um you know, residents were talking about it being a cutthrough. When we installed the one on Bington, we installed one there. That one hadn't haven't heard a thing about from anybody um on that one. But that one probably took two years to go through the process. Nobody. Because one of the things that we require in the petition is that if it is in front of your house,

right? You have to be the advocate for it. Nobody wants it in front of their They want it, but not in front of my house. Not. And when I'm going to say seven, eight years ago, Force Park Avenue was the same thing. We were looking at a raised crosswalk and everybody was like 100% fort. Everybody was like, "But not in front of my house cuz I want my parking. I want this. I want that." what Cambridge did. Oh, not so that they they didn't put the um raised crosswalks on like Magazine Street, the big RTO, but the entrance to every side street. Yep. Which is a residential street is a raised c you is a raised crosswalk, right?

So, it's really signaling, okay, you're now going you're going from an arterial to a residential street. Yeah. And that has been received cuz I I want us to return. Springfield is now again 2025. We were the deadliest community for pedestrians in all of Massachusetts for the third out of the last five six years. So something has got to change and we've got to so if people complain we can keep we need to bring up to them as as Todd was saying

safety safety we're killing people well the other you may want not want to go slower you may not want speed humps on the other hand we are the deadliest community in Massachusetts so something has to change and just for everybody's purpose when there is a major accident and especially a fatality we immediately meet with the police department

and the police department will say in every single case it was the pedestrians's fault well we have no crosswalks across arterials in this city so guess what we have a culture of you have just got to cross wherever and whenever you can and guess what you'll get killed. Um, you know, I mean,

I'm I'm going to I'm going to disagree with you conversation I brought up to commission superintendent atens. How about you leading the charge to do a vision zero initiative like you know inconsistent you'll get Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to work with you on that. Well, what's that? Oh, it's to bring down the fatalities to zero. Well, that that's impossible. So I mentioned one he doesn't know about it. He doesn't know about it. He did not know about it. Before we go on, do we have do we have any further questions for That's why I don't want to leave the school I want to we can't just leave the school department hanging.

Right. So that's my next thing. Do we have any further questions or comments for the schools? Because I know a lot of discussion on on the road. So that way I don't want to keep them. So, and one of the things that I'm going to do, I know I know you've Betsy, you and um Chevy have seen it. I'll circulate to you uh Lavar the concept plans that we have for the SS4A. Okay.

Um cuz what they they're just and they're plans that are on aerial photography that shows what we're planning on doing. So, I'll circulate those. I'm going to double check, but I'm 99.9% sure they're posted on our website as well. Um, but I will make if if they are not, I'll make sure that they're on there, but I'll circulate them as well. Well, and I think to the extent if we have a question, right? Your turn. Yes. Or comments. Yes. I just want to blow a fantasy out of the water.

Guys, don't look for the neighborhood councils and the civic associations to get through the citizens. They're not in touch with everybody. They're in touch with the five or six people who show up at their meetings and they don't have tentacles out into the neighborhood. We all know it. I've talked to you about it. You guys know it. You certainly know it. You know it. I know it from Metro Center. Yeah. Exactly. So, I I feel your pain about trying to reach people and we don't have a newspaper. Yeah. That functions. I I don't know what what to tell you, but our main problem here that we've all touched on is education. Yes.

Education about the need for this this kind of stuff and education for the process and getting people's feedback and trying to deal with opponents and getting opponents at the table early. Yes. Intrigued. Could be an interesting uh exercise to poll the neighborhood councils and say, "How many people can you reach out to via email? For example, I know East Springfield, that's where I live. Um, they have a list and every so often they mail things out to the list. Um, whether you're a paying member or not, certain others are not that that Exactly. Certain. Yeah. Certainly. It's a small neighborhood.

East Springfield, Springfield has 26,000 plus people. It's It's four times the size of East Springfield. I mean the challenge is overwhelming. Stman has a question or panel. Yes. Uh Chris, I'd like to come back to uh comment you made about the streets that you would never put a a cross. Yeah. And again, I live I live on the Chip Springfield line. When I drive down the hill and I go to Chapi, there are speed tables across major arterials

slowing the traffic down. And it's it's wonderful. And they are around the high schools. And so I'm wondering what makes Chikipede arterials different than Springfields are here. It's 100% police and fire. Police and fire will say I cannot have them on the major streets for us to get to either an accident to a hospital. Um and that's actually in the ordinance, Michael. Correctly. Correct. We have something in there about adjacencies to uh hospitals, police, fire.

Yeah, we do. We do have in there that we get comments from police and fire. And and to be clear, the the ordinance isn't the only place that a speed bump can go. It's the only place that a resident can create a binding petition to put a speed bump. So we don't want to put residents in charge of main arterial ways that are subject to much greater engineering scrutiny than you know a dead end or a small um residential street like for example Cunningham Street. So, but that doesn't mean that, you know, because Chris, for example, State Street, right? I mean, that's that's a that's a major arterial roadway crosswalk there,

right? Which has insufficient signage. I'm not I'm I'm It's It's It's severe. It's not one of my favorite things. None of us. It's not one of my favorite things. It's operating correctly. And the day that we did it and to today, I all I do is get pitching from the fire department because they basically have to come to a stop with any piece of apparatus to go over that. Well, they have to basically come to a stop for almost every intersection as well. Well, and now now Oh, they do.

Well, they they kind of have to because they're they're just nervous about the the cross traffic people going through the X with the sirens. Well, they go they go through, but it's it's you know, when they're telling me that they got to come to a complete stop, you know, and they're going up and down State Street, that's you that's basically the answer to your question, Todd, is police and fire would say to me there's no way on God's earth I'm going to vote for something on this street that, you know, especially in Arterial, which is where we travel 99% of the time. um on that and the one on State Street and um uh and you know, for example, they you' mentioned Long Meadow, they ripped those two out and had to redo them. I know. And now you you can drive over them, which I'm done. Yeah.

At 35 m 40 mph. I don't know why they made them so big. Well, it was the complaints. It was the complaints and and it was one of those you look at the pavement on the other side and you see all the scratches

and so they were they were completely redone and I drive through there all the time. I my granddaughters live grandkids live in Enfield. It's like gez I can drive 40 miles an hour and just and not have to worry about it. But you and uh for example Springfield College did one. It's not It's not It's visual because it's got a different type of pavement, but it's not uh they didn't when you do the grading and everything, they didn't want to go back too far. So, like one side is almost flat. Uh one side of it um one of the curb side, it's almost flat. You drive through, you don't even feel it. The other side, you feel it. So when we get into uh when we start talking about the the arterial streets, it's all going to be police and fire saying to us, you're you know, you're stopping us from getting to point A to point B quickly. Yeah, I think I think I would beg to differ because Chickpe again, speed tables, they're not much. And the difference between someone dying and someone being injured and someone just walking away

are a couple miles per hour. So when you slow traffic 3 miles per hour, they see more drivers see more. They have more room to stop and there's less damage. So Chipe, you realize they had the highest pedestrian deaths in they beat us out one year.

One year. And they turned around and they put those speed tables in and it worked. So, I think throwing the gauntlet down and saying we're not going to put a speed table raised crosswalk in front of a school that's in a major arterial is not the right approach. I think staying open to it and I think allowing the school committee to say, "Hey, this might be a good solution because we see it in other communities. We know other communities have done it. Their police aren't complaining about it. They're fired."

Well, if they are, that's too bad. And it it's not like State Street Crossing Hump. These are these are speed tables. Yeah. Yes. Let me just say something about you mentioned uh Chris about speed uh speed limit signs. Yes. By the Washington School, which is where we live. There aren't any. Mhm. There people go up and down 50 miles an hour at times. Today I was on Igelale Street which directly faces the Washington school trying to just load some stuff into a car on a building we're working on.

I I felt my life was in my hands when I was doing it. They're going to pick up their kids h how they can they have no idea what I mean they may know they should go slowly. They're in a hurry so they go fast. They need to have one way you educate people is with signage and we need to have signs that are visible which means that those signs that have lights around them I know that's expensive but you need to get the word out to people and if you we can't get it out otherwise we need to do something like

just to I mean that's a minimal amount of a minimal amount of impact but at least it's something more you know if you're not going to do anything then we need to do that. The stop signs are also important. I think every one of those little side streets should have stop signs. I think the four-way stop, which we talked with you about at one point uh at the intersection of Dickensson and Washington, needs to, you know, you were going to put in, I guess, a 90-day trial of of a four-way stop. We need to do that.

We need to get those in there because I was there today at the end of the day in school. There were cars going back and forth. There were kids with their parents trying to cross while the traffic was there. I said, "My god, somebody's going to get really hurt here. We can't wait any longer." So, the Chris go um because we have two minutes. Uh I think we're going to keep this Well, I know we're going to keep this in committee. I'll wait for I I'll have you say a few words after also, Chris, but I want to try to wrap this up because uh I want to be respectful of people's time. Um we'll keep this in committee. I'll wait till you send us the Yeah. the working list.

Yep. and uh we'll look to have further discussion. What I will do is also contact made a good point. Uh I'll uh contact school committee uh give them a kind of update what we're what we're trying to do to see if they want to get on their docket as well and start having further discussion to kind of support what we're trying to do um and um kind of go from there. But we'll look to keep this committee look to have another meeting. I'll wait for Chris and also again I'll work with reaching out to the school committee. I also want to recognize our our chair, our uh president, um Tracy Whitfield. Um before you go, I want to see if she has any comments or

um so I'm in two meetings right now. Sorry I'm late. Um but I wanted to say that Betsy gave me an overview and I like the idea of having the what are they? Speed humps. Um especially starting by the if they're raised crosswalks. Yeah, raised crosswalks. especially by the schools like starting there because sometimes those cars speed by and the kids safety is so important. Um I would like to see it expand beyond that hight traffic areas but I think that that's a good start. So I just wanted to say that before I go back to the other meeting. Good to see you all. Thank you for bringing this forward.

Yes. I'm sorry. He hasn't spoke yet. I apologize. I'm going let him go and then you and then Chris final words and we'll wrap this up. I'd like to speak to what Tracy just said. Y I do believe you know everything that you said was was informational but we absolutely have to start by the schools. These cross crossing guards and these students are I mean it's very dangerous very very dangerous.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes. So, speaking of speed being our biggest problem, uh the city Kristen tell us exactly how long ago we did adopt the 25 mph thickly settled uh unposted t. Unfortunately, basically this city, the entire city is pretty much thickly settled. Back when I was a kid, Harkness Avenue had signs posted that said thickly settled and you knew you were supposed to be going at that speed. In people's infinite wisdom, that wasn't good enough. So, they put in the speed, which says 30.

Confusing, but that speed now should be 25. And so I would really like to suggest that we take out all 30 per mile 30 mph signs that are in thickly settled areas and at least put up the 25 or just a thick thickly settled warning sign again so that we slow down the roads that were intended to be at that speed. And that would be to my thinking a super good place to start. That's what Washington DC has done. You they just blaster main roads with about every every other tree.

I don't know which is the right approach is take them down or take them down and replace them or replace them with what we need to get rid of the 30 mph signs that are too fast for our thickly settled city. Thank you. Appreciate it. Uh Chris, do you have anything?

No, I don't think I have anything uh anything to add to what I have. Uh the thing that uh really has changed over the last just in general terms um I go back to 2010 when State Street was designed. Uh the idea of State Street when it was designed or when it ended up being constructed was that you could be at Main Street and get to Mass Mutual's headquarters in four minutes. And that was the idea was the word was progression. If you if you went at 35 or 40 miles an hour, you were going to hit every green light and you were never going to have to slow down. That now that design, especially when we talk about federal and state, is 100% different. Now, it is doing things to slow people down. And one of the problems that we have is you've designed all these corridors for speed over the years. Now you're designing them for slowing people down and adding in bicycles and pedestrians, which you should do. And I think something like the X as an example where the big complaint, well, one of the big complaints from pedestrian standpoint was we don't have enough crosswalks. Nine of them are going to be in there. um you know so

still well it you know it's like it's it's and you know you're putting in turn lanes in the center uh to get traffic out so um you know it's it's the the regulation stuff has has really shifted and which is which is a good thing. The problem is is that now you have so many more options uh from a of from a design perspective, from an engineering perspective and then we all these also have to look at you know liability and what we're doing here. So um I know Debbie and Betsy a little bit of we've had these discussions for we adopted the complete streets how long ago? eight 10 years 2015 2015 so 10 years um

walk by Springfield's been meeting for over 10 years and we've been you know we've been doing pretty good on getting our grants and all that sort of stuff and and putting stuff in and when we do something in one section of city the other section comes back and says we want the same thing and we did a lot of speed stuff with regard to the money that the neighborhood association got last year um read on that yeah on those signs because they collect data too that's the thing that we're able to get a lot of now we just need to post next to them what the actual speed's supposed to be. Yeah, a lot of those some of them have them on there. They work, but some of them but a lot of them don't. But um but Andy has um a list has a now he's working on that. Yeah. So, all right. So, let me

Yeah, we could have some kind of cancer afterwards, but let me uh conclude this meeting. It is now 6:04 on Thursday, April 2nd. maintenance and development topic was uh speed humps especially around our schools and throughout the city of Springfield. I want to thank uh the school department for coming and representing always when we call they come. Also to Liam um Jonathan I didn't recognize you and know who you are. I did see your comment uh message so thank you for that. Appreciate you. Yeah I I usually join the walk bike Springfield meetings. I haven't in a couple months but this one seemed pretty significant so I wanted to be here. All right. Thank you uh councelor Dava. Thank you.