A little over year ago residents along Bowmanville Avenue began asking their alderman, Pat O’Connor of the 40th Ward, to put in speed humps to slow traffic. According to Betty Redmond, who lives on the street, “he said he’d look into it.”
And they don’t just slip down Bowmanville. “You’ve got cars going 40 to 50 miles an hour,” says Redmond. “People blow through stop signs, or they do the ‘California stops’–where they slow but don’t come to a full stop. We call it the Bowmanville Expressway.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The three-way intersection of Balmoral, Leavitt, and Bowmanville may be the most dangerous spot. “I’ve seen cars swing out to pass each other at that intersection,” says Boyle. “People get really frustrated, and they just want to get out of traffic. It’s madness.”
So early in 2003 Redmond and several neighbors went door-to-door collecting signatures on petitions asking the city to install the humps. “We went to over 100 households, and only two households said they opposed the humps,” she says. “Some other people said they didn’t want them in front of their house, but it was overwhelming support.” They eventually gave O’Connor’s office more than 200 signatures.
O’Connor told the residents he’d have the city paint pedestrian crosswalks on Bowmanville. He also said he’d have speed reduced from 30 to 25 miles per hour. “They installed the 25-miles-per-hour signs,” says Redmond, “but things have not improved.” On November 2, she says, there was a three-car accident on the 5300 block. “Cars were pushed onto the curb, and one of the new 25-miles-per-hour signs got pushed over.”
“Street humps are just one of many traffic-calming devices we have,” says Steele, and he cautions that humps aren’t always the best way to control traffic. “Two of our engineers who are familiar with Bowmanville have pointed out that in that small community there are many ideas of ways to address traffic issues. No one agrees that every idea is the best solution. Our goal has been to come up with some consensus to reach our ultimate goal–safety on Bowmanville.”
