By Dedra Cordle
Staff Writer
Jackson Township officials allocated thousands of dollars from its annual budget last year to make safety improvements to its neighborhood parks. Now, officials are mulling whether additional dollars should be spent on making safety improvements to some of the streets adjacent to these parks.
At its meeting on Aug. 16, the board of trustees heard from resident Burley Dunn who shared his concerns over the volume of traffic on the roads within the Emersonia subdivision.
He said he would not mind the number of motorists who access these roads so much if they were all inclined to obey the traffic laws.
“We have a real problem in the area,” he said.
According to Dunn, some of the motorists treat these residential streets as if they were a speedway, one in which there is no concern for others sharing the road.
“We have people coming down Lois Drive and they do not stop for any of the stop signs,” he told the board. “And then we have people coming off Hyde Road and when they turn on Lois Drive or Charlemagne Street, they are going 40 or 50 miles per hour into Stoneridge.”
He said the small subdivision, which is located off McComb Road, has narrow streets and sharp turns that cause speeding motorists to cross into the other lane when caution is not heeded.
Exacerbating the issue, he said, is the fact that several of these streets are located adjacent to the neighborhood park that is always filled with children now that they have new equipment to play on.
“We need to do something to protect the children who play in that park and we need to do something to protect the people who live in that area,” said Dunn.
He suggested that the board allocate funds to research traffic calming measures within the Emersonia subdivision. His preferred method would be the implementation of speed bumps along Lois Drive and Charlemagne Street.
“I’m not saying you have to install them up and down the road,” he said, “but I would like to see them placed near the stop signs on these streets.”
Board chairman David Burris said he agreed with Dunn that traffic calming measures need to be taken to quell the speeding issue within the subdivision.
“It’s been going on for a long time,” he said.
He told Township Administrator Shane Farnsworth to contact the county engineer’s office to get their opinion on the possible installation of speed bumps or speed tables in Emersonia.
Farnsworth said after the meeting that the reason why so many jurisdictions look at other traffic calming measures is because speed bumps and speed tables can be costly to install and they can be a hindrance to road crews and emergency vehicles. However, he added that the township will work with the county engineer’s office to come up with a solution to this on-going safety problem.
