New: Click here for a reply to Peter Sherwood's column about Traffic Calming
As many of you know, neighbors along Camino Cabra have been working for almost three years to get the city to provide us with some relief from the onslaught of traffic that is threatening the safety and the peace and quiet of our neighborhood. According to a city traffic study, the average speed on Cabra is over 40 miles per hour, even though it is posted at 25 mph. (And for the average to be that high, a fair amount of drivers must be going even faster.) Recently a police crackdown on Cabra and Camino Cruz Blanca resulted in 60 speeding tickets in two weeks. Then the police moved on, and the speeding is now worse than ever.
Since the city doesn't have the money to station police officers on Cabra (or any other street) 24 hours a day, the only solution is traffic calming devices like those that have worked so well in other cities. After numerous neighborhood meetings with the city, the traffic engineers have come up with a sensible proposal that would place a few very gentle speed tables (these are far milder than the speed humps and speed bumps we all see in shopping center parking lots) along Cabra. They are designed to reduce speeds from over 40 mph down to 30 mph, but not lower. The plan will be presented to every member of the neighborhood for input and suggestions and will be implemented only if the majority of us approve. This is democracy in action. But if you do not return your ballot, that will be counted as a vote against traffic calming. Even worse, if the plan doesn't pass, the money will be spent in other neighborhoods and it will be years before we have another chance.
(1) Speeding is dangerous to neighbors and to children who attend the four schools along Camino Cabra -- Manderfield Head Start, Cristo Rey, Atalaya, and Rio Grande.
(2) Slower traffic means less noise. Studies show that slowing traffic from 40 mph to 30 mph reduces street noise by a full five decibels -- an improvement equivalent to "removing one half the vehicles from the roadway." Quiet like that is well worth putting up with a few speed tables. If you have ever been awakened at night by a drag-racing motorcycle or speeding car, please vote for traffic calming.
(3) Speeding traffic undermines property values and makes houses harder to rent. Denying us traffic calming is hurting us economically.
(4) The whole idea behind traffic calming is stated in a booklet from the City of Santa Fe: "Motorists should be guests and behave accordingly." Let's start insisting that they do.
(1) A small group of residents who live outside the neighborhood is trying to block traffic calming, apparently because they find speed tables annoying as they rush down Cabra on their trips downtown.
(2) At the same time, the Historic Design Review Board is trying to stop traffic calming in all the historic districts, including along Cabra and Upper Canyon Road. They say that speed tables and warning signs are "historically incorrect." We strongly support the preservation of our historic districts, but in this case the board is exceeding its authority and putting aesthetics over safety. After all, there is nothing historically quaint or charming about the loud, smelly, speeding traffic that threatens to turn what was historically a goat trail into a highway.