PennDOT calls on East Washington to remove speed bumps
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Speed humps used to slow traffic on several East Washington streets, including South Wade Avenue, will remain for now.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
A speed bump on South Wade Avenue in East Washington
A speed bump on South Wade Avenue in East Washington.
State officials are telling the elected leaders of East Washington to remove speed bumps on South Wade Avenue and other borough streets.
The state Department of Transportation sent the borough a letter last month after a Dec. 12 meeting involving an agency municipal services specialist and borough officials. PennDOT is giving the municipality 30 days from that meeting to clear the speed bumps, which don’t match state guidelines, or lose some of the state money it receives every year.
“The basic part of (the letter) was that they have to remove the speed bumps from those roadways if they want to continue liquid fuels funding for that road segment,” PennDOT spokeswoman Valerie Petersen said.
The letter, sent the day after the meeting, also points to a policy that roads receiving those funds “must be drivable at 15 mph safely.”
Money from the state tax on gasoline and other liquid fuels is divided among municipalities based on their population and total road mileage. The funds can cover road projects like street repair and construction. East Washington’s allotment last year was more than $58,000. It had 2,000 people and less than six miles of eligible streets.
Borough police Chief David Bradley estimated the borough stands to lose “around $2,000.”
“It’s up to the council whether they’ll remove it or not, and that’ll be discussed at Monday’s meeting,” Bradley added.
Last month, council President Matt Boice dismissed PennDOT’s directive to remove the speed bumps as “really a non-story” and said the money the borough could lose by failing to comply would be “negligible.”
The borough had the seven bumps installed in July 2017. Along with two on South Wade Avenue near Washington & Jefferson College’s campus, the others are in less-traveled residential areas – Wilmont and Christman avenues and Thayer and Harrison streets. They force drivers to come to a near-halt before jostling over them.
While borough officials refer to the obstacles as “speed humps,” the obstacles they installed don’t match state officials’ description of that type of measure.
A PennDOT handbook does include a section on speed humps, which are three or four inches high but 12 to 20 feet long, as a way to slow traffic.
East Washington’s devices, which span the width of the street, aren’t as gradual – only 2 3/8 inches high but less than a foot long.
“Speed bumps may generate severe vertical displacement at low speeds and are not to be used as traffic calming measures,” according to the guidelines, which the letter cites.
Bradley said the other parameters of the measures – like the signs, roadway markings and placement – match state recommendations.
He said people in the borough were initially “split about 50-50” but the bumps seem to have become popular with citizens, who’ve asked for more of them. Other communities have shown interest in them, too. He said they’ve also stopped the speeding drivers who used to prompt complaints every month at council meetings.
“Without a doubt, it has diminished a little bit of traffic on South Wade,” Bradley said. “It has slowed travelers down at all the locations.”