CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Chesapeake’s Public Works Department is responsible for determining where safety measures, like speed bumps, speed cameras, and radar signs, are needed throughout the city’s neighborhoods. But how do officials decide which streets qualify for these traffic-calming tools?
Well, to understand the process, it helps to look back at an issue raised several months ago.
In October, Chesapeake resident and mother Christina Wilson voiced concerns about drivers speeding through her neighborhood on Filly Run in Deep Creek.
“It’s really about the safety of everybody back here,” Wilson said at the time. “I understand everybody has a place to go. But if you’re in a rush, you just have to leave earlier.”
After multiple residents raised concerns both to News 3 and over social media, the city’s Public Works Department provided a statement to us explaining that measures like speed humps are not installed lightly.
“Because physical countermeasures, such as speed tables or humps, can bring unintended consequences, their use is intentionally scrutinized and recommended for locations only where the traffic calming requirements are met,” the department said in part.
Ultimately, both Filly Run and neighboring Old Mill Road did not meet the requirements for the city’s traffic calming program, but how does a road qualify?
According to Tracy Jones-Schoenfeld, a Chesapeake traffic engineer, the goal of the program is to focus resources on the areas with the highest need.
“The intent of the program is to really allocate the resources that we have to the biggest problem areas,” she explained. “So the most traffic, the highest speeds, and that’s what we use to go down the checklist.”
The first requirement is that a road must have a posted speed limit below 25 miles per hour, since the program is designed specifically for neighborhood streets. If a street qualifies, engineers then collect data on traffic volume and average speeds to determine whether additional safety measures are warranted.
When a road does meet criteria, the city has several tools at its disposal.
“We’ve done permanent radar feedback signs that show you how fast you are driving,” Jones-Schoenfeld said. “We also have locations where we have implemented higher fines for speeding, there’s an additional $200 fine.”
While many safety complaints begin with personal accounts from residents, Chesapeake's Director of Public Works, Early Sorey, says the city basis its decisions on the data they collect.
“We really try to make our decisions based on actual data,” he said. “If somebody calls in and says, ‘Hey, we’ve got a speeding problem,’ they’ll give anecdotal stories, but then we’ll go out and actually collect hard data.”
After reviewing the Deep Creek area, officials found that although construction on the nearby Deep Creek Bridge has increased cut-through traffic, the numbers suggest that the speeding concerns may stem from the perception of more vehicles rather than drivers significantly exceeding the speed limit.
