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Remember no one is asking for an end to traffic calming, just TC reform. You be the judge.
Wednesday, October 7, 1998 from the Los Angeles Times- News/Orange County
by
DANIEL
YI, Times Staff Writer
They give peace of mind to traffic-weary residents and jolt
the bones of rogue motorists whizzing down the street.
But as speed
bumps become more popular on the American road, they have found a new
enemy in firefighters and paramedics who say the devices slow their
response to emergency calls.
Communities from Santa Monica to San
Diego are struggling with the issue, while other cities such as Berkeley
and Boulder, Colo., have placed moratoriums on new speed bumps until
emergency response issues are ironed out.
In few places have the
battle lines been drawn more clearly than in Coto de Caza, where the
Orange County Fire Authority is demanding that the upscale, gated private
community remove the nearly 30 speed bumps that dot the hilly streets.
Leaders of the homeowners association in the unincorporated area are
balking at the order, even though the fire department threatened them with
misdemeanor charges that could bring jail terms unless officials comply.
"People don't realize we have 500 gallons of water inside those fire
engines," said Blake Garlin, a 23-year veteran firefighter who until
recently worked at Coto de Caza's station. "With that weight, we
can't take bumps very fast. We have to come to almost a complete stop."
Fire
officials emphasize that quick response is critical in any emergency and
cite studies showing that speed bumps slow down fire engines.
"Seconds
matter when you are talking about life and death," said Capt. Jim
Jacobs of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, which strongly
discourages the use of speed bumps.
"If you have a heart attack,
the optimum [response] time is between four and six minutes. And now you
are adding to it."
Jacobs and others could not point to examples
in which delays from speed bumps resulted in loss of life or property.
But Capt. Scott Brown of the Orange County Fire Authority noted that
it takes only about five minutes for a fire to burn beyond its flash-over
point and quickly spread.
The issue is particularly relevant in
Southern California, given its heavy dependence on the automobile.
The
region is also home to nearly 200 private communities such as Coto de
Caza, many of which rely on bumps to enforce speed limits because police
generally don't patrol their streets.
"This is an issue that is
going to get wider and deeper and bigger," said Ed Blakely, dean of
USC's School of Urban Planning and Development, noting that Southern
California leads the nation in the number of such communities.
The
proliferation of speed bumps extends beyond private communities.
The
bumps are also part of a larger trend in public road management called "traffic
calming," which is fast becoming the predominant philosophy of
transportation engineers.
The concept employs physical devices such as
bumps, traffic circles, road medians and extended sidewalk chokers to
better control--and slow down--vehicles, especially in residential areas.
A Growing Cry for 'Traffic Calming'
In private
communities, the bumps are installed and financed by homeowners
associations. On public streets, municipal governments control where the
devices are placed.
"It has gone from a handful of places to
hundreds over the last five years," said Reid Ewing, an urban planner
and author of a Federal Highway Administration study on traffic calming
due out later this year.
Speed bumps have become increasingly common
on streets in Ventura County communities such as Simi Valley, despite
occasional protests from some residents that the devices slow paramedics
and firefighters.
Ventura County's Transportation Department used to
allow the fire department to veto any speed- bump requests.
But in
1993, the county changed that policy because officials felt decisions
should be made based on traffic engineering and not fire response
concerns, said principal engineer Bob Brownie.
In cities with
advanced programs, such as Seattle, Portland and Pasadena, traffic calming
has been successful in diverting commuter traffic off residential streets
and on to major thoroughfares.
But at what cost? The city of Portland
in 1995 conducted a study to determine exactly how much fire response was
affected by traffic calming.
The study concluded that each bump adds
as much as 9.4 seconds to emergency response times, depending on the type
of fire truck and the size of the bump.
Traffic circles added even
more time, as much as 10.7 seconds. Testers found that smaller emergency
vehicles, such as rescue trucks, generally experienced the least delays.
In some cases, the bumps caused no delays. Larger fire trucks and
engines generally experienced greater delays, and truck engineers
complained the bumps damaged their equipment.
In Orange County, the
Fire Authority conducted a study revealing response times in neighborhoods
served by Fire Station 40 in Coto de Caza were not meeting department
standards.
The department's goal is a response time of five minutes
or less for 80% of calls. By contrast, the Coto de Caza station was
meeting that mark for only 22% of calls.
Firefighter Garlin recounted
a particularly jarring experience two years ago in Dove Canyon, Coto's
neighboring community, which also has been ordered to remove its bumps.
The developers had just installed a new bump on one of the streets, and it
had not yet been painted.
"We hit that little puppy and we just
flew," Blake said. Brown, the Fire Authority spokesman, said some
local residents began raising concerns about the bumps last year,
prompting the response-time study.
He said the department sympathizes
with the communities' need for traffic control, but "there must be
another way."
Seeking a Balance for Maximum Safety
Some residents agree and have suggested a compromise: removing
the bumps from major streets but keeping them on smaller ones where
children are most likely to play.
The idea will be discussed today
during a meeting between the homeowners association and Fire Authority.
Michelle Dales, waiting for a school bus with her 5-year-old son one
recent morning, said speed bumps help control traffic but that having them
on the main roads is probably overkill.
"[Drivers] usually speed
up to 60 mph in between the bumps anyway," she said. Some of Dales'
neighbors, however, fear that without the bumps, speeding in their
neighborhood will get worse.
"Speed bumps slow emergency
vehicles, but it also slows down other people," said John Zarian,
president of Coto de Caza's homeowners association. Zarian and others see
the bumps as their only protection against speeding cars.
"I
worry because I know people speed already," said April Orband, a
five-year Coto de Caza resident and mother of three small children. "Cars
come flying around the corner, and we have kids playing outside."
Other communities are trying to head off conflict by bringing fire
departments into the traffic planning process. In Los Angeles County, the
Department of Public Works began consulting with fire personnel before
installing speed bumps a few years back.
Now, Smith said, the county
is trying other traffic-calming tools less detrimental to fire response,
such as a "neighborhood speed watch program" in which residents
are trained to use radar guns and write down the license plate numbers of
speeding cars.
The issue of speed bumps is likely to spread to other
parts of the country as traffic calming becomes more prevalent, Atkins
said.
Many cities resort to bumps because they are relatively
cheaper: about $1,500 per device compared to $15,000 for a traffic circle,
she said.
"It is a trade-off, but by making roads safer there
will be less accidents and less calls for ambulances or other emergency
services," said Edward Reimborn of the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Center for Urban Transportation.
But when it
comes to traffic, "everyone has an opinion."
* * *
Slow Ride for Easy Street
A number of "traffic calming
devices" are used to slow speeding cars using residential
neighborhoods as shortcuts to major thoroughfares.
Residents say the
devices slow traffic.
But fire officials say some of them--such as
speed bumps, knuckles and traffic circles--increase emergency response
times.