Is Speeding Really A Problem? And Who Should Pay?
Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:00 am
This past week I had the chance to speak with Councilman Tristan Rader, his question was, "What do we do about speeding?" Now this is a question where history and numbers matter. We do have history and facts to look back on. It pops up every couple years, and "traffic calming" is a city's Vitamin D shot: something rarely needed but something doctors give to make you think they are doing something.
Want to stop speeding? Stop trying to make Lakewood a destination city. People speeding to and from bars will always be an issue. Another simple easy way to slow down cars, stop fixing the roads. Lakewood has a long history of speeding following the fixing of a road. How much sense does it make to spend $150,000 a road to fix the bumps, then spend another $5,000 putting bumps back in. Bumps that make keeping the streets free of ice and snow a nightmare. OR, allow parking on both sides of side streets. This will intimidate drivers to slow down, as the road narrows with guardrails made of cars. This also takes care of our parking problem. Cost is nothing, and the effect has been proven to work time and time again.
What Lakewood needs to do is simplify, and bring on consistency. Example-- traffic related but not speeding-- is Lakewood has 5 flashing light caution areas including the one at Manor Park and Detroit. NONE of them are similar in rules, operation or how a driver handles them. Why? The answer is different groups putting them up at different times thinking they have a better way. Why? Cross walks are now taking on their own lives as each one being put down is different with different signage, rules and reasons. Why?
Back at the start of the FitzGerald administration when he was destroying our Health and Human Service Department for business development, when we were transitioning from the best place to raise a family to another community with lots of craft beer, we posted study after study where this would lead to more crime. Everything from rape and robbery to speeding and litter. But they did not care, all they cared about was closing the hospital to get the $$$$ and land, and making it look like Lakewood was progressing. It was not, it was falling into a rabbit hole. The FitzGerald administration bet Lakewood's future on bars, plunking down our largest employer and tax payer, Lakewood Hospital, so that their largest supporter could have 3 bars and restaurants on Detroit.
We were played by FitzGerald, Summers, Bullock and others.
So who should pay? I am starting to think business owners need to carry more of this load than the residents.
Lakewood residents should be asking members of City Council and civic leaders if conspiring to close our largest employer and skim $67,000,000 into a private foundation secretly behind the backs of voters for ten years might be a larger problem. Especially as they are still running for office and trying to take back City Hall.
Speeders, the city can survive, the FitzGerald/Summers/Bullock/Litten team, not so much.
.
Want to stop speeding? Stop trying to make Lakewood a destination city. People speeding to and from bars will always be an issue. Another simple easy way to slow down cars, stop fixing the roads. Lakewood has a long history of speeding following the fixing of a road. How much sense does it make to spend $150,000 a road to fix the bumps, then spend another $5,000 putting bumps back in. Bumps that make keeping the streets free of ice and snow a nightmare. OR, allow parking on both sides of side streets. This will intimidate drivers to slow down, as the road narrows with guardrails made of cars. This also takes care of our parking problem. Cost is nothing, and the effect has been proven to work time and time again.
What Lakewood needs to do is simplify, and bring on consistency. Example-- traffic related but not speeding-- is Lakewood has 5 flashing light caution areas including the one at Manor Park and Detroit. NONE of them are similar in rules, operation or how a driver handles them. Why? The answer is different groups putting them up at different times thinking they have a better way. Why? Cross walks are now taking on their own lives as each one being put down is different with different signage, rules and reasons. Why?
Back at the start of the FitzGerald administration when he was destroying our Health and Human Service Department for business development, when we were transitioning from the best place to raise a family to another community with lots of craft beer, we posted study after study where this would lead to more crime. Everything from rape and robbery to speeding and litter. But they did not care, all they cared about was closing the hospital to get the $$$$ and land, and making it look like Lakewood was progressing. It was not, it was falling into a rabbit hole. The FitzGerald administration bet Lakewood's future on bars, plunking down our largest employer and tax payer, Lakewood Hospital, so that their largest supporter could have 3 bars and restaurants on Detroit.
We were played by FitzGerald, Summers, Bullock and others.
So who should pay? I am starting to think business owners need to carry more of this load than the residents.
Lakewood residents should be asking members of City Council and civic leaders if conspiring to close our largest employer and skim $67,000,000 into a private foundation secretly behind the backs of voters for ten years might be a larger problem. Especially as they are still running for office and trying to take back City Hall.
Speeders, the city can survive, the FitzGerald/Summers/Bullock/Litten team, not so much.
.