The most common complaint in the neighborhood is people speeding and running stop signs. Perhaps this is the number one complaint because we are a settled neighborhood with few other major problems (e.g. no development pressures to speak of for decades, and low crime here), but speeding of course, is an actual problem. We definitely get drivers cutting through our neighborhood, and they do seem to be in a hurry to make the "smart and tricky" shortcut they are taking pay off in their view. There are also a lot more delivery drivers on our roads these days. We have heard multiple times from police, however, that when they ticket people in our neighborhood (or any neighborhood), a very high percentage of the time it is someone from the neighborhood!
It is probably relatively rare that people even get 15 mph over the limit on our curvy roads; nevertheless, a couple truisms come into play:
(1) We essentially all would prefer if everybody driving past our homes or passing us as we walk in the neighborhood be driving their vehicles ∼25 mph or less and watching the road;
(2)When we are ourselves driving in our cars, we all want to get where we are going and we are sure we are driving a "safe" speed, whatever the speedometer says, because after all 'we know these roads like the backs of our hands.'
What can and has been done
First and foremost -- slow down and remember truism #1!!
Police Enforcement-- We can continue to periodically pester the police department to run enforcement in our neighborhood. Police tell us that, in addition to catching mostly our neighbors during enforcement, that doing enhanced enforcement does not have a long-lasting effect, and with their staff levels, they simply can't have someone in our neighborhood all the time. At times in the past we have been given the contact information for the officers assigned to Greenbrier (part of a much larger area they are assigned to patrol), but as of early 2022 this information is not being made available due to the staffing problems the department has had recently. The department reportedly aims to institute more of a neighborhood model of policing once they are staffed up to do so.
Enhanced fines -- The GNA advocated for and got the City to impose enhanced speeding penalties on the stretch of Brandywine from King Mountain to Hydraulic because it has a long history of being a problem enforcement area. Not sure it has helped.
Traffic Engineering-- The City has had a great deal of trouble keeping traffic engineers on staff. It turns out that being our City's traffic engineer is a good springboard to higher paying jobs in larger cities and with private consulting firms. In any event, multiple City traffic engineers have struggled to come up with many real answers for us. In 2022 the City is working to hire 2 additional traffic planner types which will hopefully help with the capacity of the office and allow for more focus on helping neighborhoods.
Speed humps and raised crosswalks -- The neighbors on Essex and King Mountain successfully petitioned for speed humps, but these seem to have fallen out of favor generally and traffic engineers have told us these should not be put on "collector" roads like Brandywine, Greenbrier, and Meadowbrook Heights and Yorktown. They also note that emergency vehicles get slowed down by them and people should realize that speed humps create noise for the homes around the hump (as people slow down, hit the hump, and then speed up).
Rumble strips -- These can remind people to slow down, but also are noisy for residents in homes nearby.
Other "Calming" designs -- Traffic engineers have told us that, in order to make a difference, it is best to have multiple calming devices in a row on a street -- which can be tough to do. In the 2000's the City seemed much more interested in helping neighborhoods with traffic calming issues and through GNA advocacy the traffic engineers considered a number of options for Greenbrier including whether putting in a roundabout at Greenbrier and Brandywine might be a good thing. They decided at the time that it would not really fit and would be a problem for fire trucks as well as the pedestrians crossing. They also separately decided that a raised crosswalk (like a speed hump) at Greenbrier and Kerry would not work (see above traffic hump issues, plus a drainage problem).
The City did, however, did square off the T-intersection at Greenbrier and Tarleton where the 3-way stop is located. Prior to that the intersection was rounded coming from Greenbrier School and turning right to stay on Greenbrier Dr. Moreover, it was just controlled by a yield sign and cars would slow only as much as physics required. The fire hydrant was even taken out on more than one occasion.
We've also talked with the traffic engineers over the years about the possibility of putting in physical constrictors like on Park Street (downtown), which used to be entirely straight. It is unclear where this would be workable in our neighborhood (although Grove Rd residents at one point considered finding an unneeded vehicle to keep parked on the steep downhill part to slow other vehicles down). Moreover, speed studies which the City did before and then not long after the Park Street job, unfortunately indicated the constrictors did not succeed at slowing people down on that street in any significant way.
The City does still take on traffic calming at least when pushed. For instance, the residents of Elliot Ave through a lot of good vocal advocacy got about a million dollars of funding for traffic calming measures in the late 2000 teens.
Crosswalksare considered "calming," and the neighborhood successfully got a lot of new crosswalks put in during the early 2000s. More recently, in about 2020 (through advocacy by Yorktown residents and the NA) we got the crosswalk put in on Brandywine at the Yorktown intersection.
Of the crosswalks we got put in during the early 2000s, a couple of them at our neighborhood entrances (on Meadowbrook Heights at Grove and the ones crossing Melbourne at the CHS entrance) were made to look like brick. At the time the City had a metal grid that could be pushed into the pavement to make indentations in the shape of bricks and then the brick pattern across the road was painted brick color. These crosswalks looked very nice and were definitely more noticeable to drivers and they brought a general calming feel that kind of announced one was entering a neighborhood. Unfortunately, the City decided they did not want to maintain these fake brick sidewalks and stopped making them or maintaining them.
In any event, we need to make sure the basic crosswalk painting is maintained on the ones we have and there are likely other spots where they are still needed. The City has also been willing in high needs areas to put the more noticeable kind with thick white bars parallel to the road (see e.g. our newest crosswalk installed around 2019 at Brandywine and Yorktown vs the traditional kind with two thin lines crossing the road. So maybe we should push for more of those.
Stop Signs -- Multiple City traffic engineers have stated to us that these are surprisingly not considered traffic calming, because some people will end up rolling through them and/or speeding faster between stop signs to make up time. Nevertheless, they certainly feel helpful in breaking up "speedways" even if people only slow down for them. In the early 2000s (in advance of Rio Road being entirely closed for a few months for construction to improve the curvy part of Rio), the neighborhood advocated for and got the 3- and 4-way stop signs put in at Tarleton/Greenbrier, Greenbrier/Brandywine, Brandywine/King Mountain, Essex/Meadowbrook Heights, Grove/Meadowbrook Heights, Grove/Yorktown, Grove/Kenwood, and Grove/Melbourne.
As a historical footnote -- the stop signs put up on Melbourne at Grove Rd were actually a mistaken understanding by the City of our request -- which had been to put the stop signs on Melbourne at the Grover Ct intersection which is the intersection with the CHS main entrance, which seemed like the logical place for a four way stop to us. Nevertheless, the CHS entrance is noticeable enough particularly when we had the fake brick cross walks there, so that it does kind of create a chain of calming -- first drivers coming into the neighborhood on Melbourne see the CHS entrance and then they come to a stop sign at Grove.
When Rio road was re-opened we called a neighborhood meeting to discuss which stop signs we wanted to ask to keep. The stop signs were definitely NOT universally loved by our residents, but the clear majority voted to keep all of them except the ones on Greenbrier at the Tarleton intersection and the ones on Kenwood at the Concord intersection. The stop signs seem to have gained acceptance on the whole, but some drivers obviously still roll/blow through them and no doubt some of these drivers are some of us. Please don't do that.
Sidewalks -- These can be a bit "calming" by getting more pedestrians out walking next to the road (a reminder to drivers that this is a neighborhood) and by designing the sidewalk to encroach on the road, thereby narrowing the road (which slows people down versus wide roads). Of course, primarily sidewalks just make it safer for pedestrians to walk even where speeds are excessive.
Since 2000, the GNA successfully advocated for completing sidewalks along Greenbrier (between Kerry and the T Intersection with Tarleton; also the section from the Brook Rd intersection up to Rio Road) and Brandywine (from Yorktown to Hydraulic), and getting sidewalks built on the worst parts of Meadowbrook Heights (King Mountain to Grove) and Kenwood (from Kenwood to Melbourne -- except for one problematic spot). We still need more sidewalks in places, especially along Yorktown (Bunker Hill to Brandywine). Our long planned off-road multi-use paths in the Meadow Creek Stream Valley will also be a great addition to giving people safe passage and will indeed be much more pleasant than any sidewalk and also avoids the hills of Greenbrier. (see our trail plan page)
In 2015 the City came up with a prioritization of needed sidewalks in the City based on a bunch of logical factors but may not have been "ground truth" enough and Neighborhood Associations' desires seemed to have been left out of the calculus. Based on the priorities the City planned to build a sidewalk on Kenwood between Meadowbrook Heights and Yorktown by the end of 2019, but the project has stalled. The City also curiously prioritized Bunker Hill for a sidewalk but it doesn't seem to have full resident support and there is no funding for it. The City had also prioritized pretty much the full length of Tarleton but enough residents objected that it did not move forward.
In Fall of 2017 the GNA asked why the curvy part of Yorktown was not prioritized higher and after reconsidering -- the City officials acknowledged they had in fact not calculated Yorktown's score properly. As a result the Neighborhood development office requested line item funding for the side walk in the City's 5 year Capital Improvement Plan but the request did not make the budget. The CIP budget is adjusted every year and the GNA has continued to re-advocate for the Yorktown sidewalk, and submitted it along with the Multi-use path as Capital Improvement Budget requests during a few years in the late 2000 teens when the City was asking for direct NA input.
The residents of Yorktown also have done a great job of advocating. They have sent a petition to the traffic engineer signed by the residents and in 2020 organized a well publicized event that local officials came to in order to see first hand the road and the problem it presents for pedestrians. In 2022 the City School System realized there was going to be a major shortage of bus drivers. As part of efforts to solve the problem the City expanded it's walking zones (which had been some of the shortest anywhere) and solicited public input on how to make walking and riding bikes safer to school. Even though there was not money for a sidewalk along Yorktown the residents along with advocacy from the GNA succeed in getting the City to paint white sidelines on the section with no sidewalk. It is a significant improvement in safety, while certainly not a substitute for a sidewalk.
Radar Signs -- In the past, we have asked for and received a placement of the big temporary radar sign on wheels to remind people of their speed as they drive by the sign. It seems like we should continue to push for such temporary placements. We have also asked for consideration of a permanent radar sign or two (e.g. along Brandywine as one goes down the hill from King Mountain to Hydraulic). There are several such sign on roads in the City but the traffic engineers have said they are very expensive and they only want to put them up where there is a high volume of traffic.
In response to our requests for permanent radar signs in about 2019 the traffic engineer stated they were considering purchasing a moveable radar sign that could be strapped to existing utility poles and moved to different problem spots periodically, including ones where the roads are too tight for the big mobile radar unit on wheels. We have encourage the City to purchase multiple such units given speeding is a constant complaint from all the Neighborhood Associations.
Speed Limits-- We of course have the normal 25 mph residential speed limits but in the mid-2000 teens a City wide school safety group successfully pushed to lower speed limits around elementary schools including Greenbrier to 15 miles an hour during arrival and departure times.
Bus Service - If more of us used public transit or bikes or walked there would be less traffic on our roads and presumably less speeding (In addition to being better for the environment etc) . Of course, we need the infrastructure and transit service to be in place to encourage getting out of our cars and we haven't had enough of either. Indeed, we at times have had no bus service in our neighborhood, and then it was only "on call" service. Now we also have a bus line just dipping into the neighborhood around CHS.