City resident Allen Gray speaks to the city council public safety committee about concerns with speeding on his street. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

Delaware Avenue has the potential to see some changes when it comes to speeding following a resident voicing concerns to the City Council’s Public Safety Committee meeting.

Allen Gray, a resident of the area, said Delaware Avenue is a very straight road, and he has a big concern about traffic coming up from Hazeltine Avenue that is extremely fast.

“There’s several cars that use it as their own personal speedway basically,” Gray said. “Several of them are the same cars all the time.”

Gray added that the area is also a walking area for some of the city schools with two in the area. Some of the sidewalks on the street are not in good shape, meaning people will often have to walk along the side of the road as well. Kids are also seen playing by or in the street.

“It’s just really dangerous,” Gray said. “There are times when I’m sitting out on my front porch that you can hear traffic the next two or three streets over that are just horribly fast. It is just scary.”

Gray said he has heard suggestions of speed machines being put out to show how fast someone is going, but added that those do not really do anything to help, and speed limit signs do not always either. Additionally, Gray mentioned he had heard of the city’s ongoing work on the Safe Streets For All project, which he praised and said he feels the city needs to have more of a community push for.

“I think it’s a great idea we need as a community to start pushing, trying to convince people to be more aware of the fact that the public has a right to the highway as well as the cars do,” Gray said. “It’s just dangerous and it scares me.”

Police Chief Scott Forster asked if there are any specific times that traffic is really bad on the street, to which Gray said there is a lot when people are heading to or coming home from work. He also noted that people have a tendency to hurry, and while he said he cannot judge speed that well it is easy to tell when a car is going a normal speed of about 30 miles per hour on the street compared to 40 or 50. Forster said the police department can do some extra enforcement up in the neighborhood, such as the speed machine and some extra patrols. With the road being near some schools there are already officers at pick up and drop off times, and Forster said he can alert some officers to go through and try to crack down on speeding in the area.

Councilman Doug Scotchmer, D-Ward 4, spoke on the issue as well at the full council work session, saying he had heard of a similar issue on Chautauqua Avenue, which runs adjacent to Delaware Avenue, and that it has been something people on Chautauqua Avenue have been seeing for years.

“People turn off of Hazeltine and basically have a straight shot to the city line,” Scotchmer said. “They would like to see if there is something that could be done to slow traffic down.”

Both streets have also been marked out as places to work on for the Safe Streets For All project. There are some other areas where Scotchmer said he has heard similar complaints, and that speeding is an issue that becomes a common complaint from people even in what might be considered quiet neighborhoods.