Stronger measures that the current combination of speed bumps and patrol cars equipped with radar are needed to protect children in Hidden Brook from drivers traveling at speeds up to 50 mph, many parents say.
Early weekday afternoons in Laura Kennedy’s grassy front yard are tranquil. The only sound, other than the occasional rumble of a passing car, is the laughter coming from a mother and children at the house across Middle Creek Road taking advantage of the spring weather to be outside.
But the quiet is deceptive, Hidden Brook residents say, an all-too-brief lull between two predictable daily storms.
Every weekday morning and again every afternoon, Middle Creek and other main streets in the subdivision echo with the rumbles of traffic hurrying – sometimes, racing – to and from Signal Mountain Middle High and other schools.
They’re not exaggerating.
According to a recent traffic study commissioned by the town, some of the parents and students behind the wheels of those vehicles barrel through residential Hidden Brook at speeds approaching 50 mph – double the legal limit posted on signs throughout the neighborhood.
Traffic engineer Cindy Shell of Volkert Engineering, who collected during school hours on March 26 for a study commissioned by town officials, said the drivers she observed were traveling an average of 34.9 mph.
“The highest speed recorded was 47 mph,” she reported, “and the lowest . . . 22 mph.”
Statistics like that were the impetus that led a majority of town council members to vote this week to implement a variety of traffic control measures – including replacing existing speed bumps with sturdier speed humps and installing radar feedback signs – along Hidden Brook’s most heavily traveled streets.
Before the vote some members, mindful of the many equally vocal opponents of proposed traffic controls, wondered aloud whether to first hold a referendum to determine whether the measure had the support of a majority of those affected.
Council president Dick Gee, however, was adamant in his insistence that when public safety is at risk, council members have a responsibility to act.
“That’s our job,” he argued successfully.
This wasn’t the first time the council has tried to get a handle on Hidden Brook’s problems with speeders; early during the current school year officials approved the installation of four speed bumps on the neighborhood’s busiest streets.
Today, only one of those bumps survives. The other two reportedly were destroyed by snow plows, much to the delight of residents opposed to the controls.
“Bring back the snow plows!” one disappointed opponent muttered as he left the council meeting following the traffic control vote.
Word of the vote came as good news to Valewood Drive resident Nicki Kent, whose household includes three small children and an amiable dog she is careful to keep on a leash so it won’t run into the street and get hit.
Valewood isn’t heavily traveled, she says, so she’s had relatively few problems. However, she adds, just a few blocks away – on the sections of Hidden Brook Lane between Windy Way and Shady Circle – speeders on the way to and from area schools race by every weekday morning and afternoon.
“I’m for anything that makes it safer for the children,” Mrs. Kent says.
So are most of her friends with young families, she notes. However, other Hidden Brook residents, particularly older men and women whose children are grown, vehemently oppose measures such as speed bumps.
Sometimes, she says, the disagreements turn ugly. For example, she recalls, when a friend of hers attended a town council meeting and stood to request that officials take steps to slow down speeders, an older woman began yelling at her, accusing her of being a bad mother.
“She told my friend she never needed speed bumps when her kids were little because she taught them to stay out of the street,” Mrs. Kent says. “She said if my friend would just teach her kids to mind, she wouldn’t need (speed bumps) either.”
Her friend is a good mother, she notes. But even good mothers can’t always be there when a ball bounces into a street and a child chases after it; that’s why it’s important, she says, to try to make sure that if and when something like that happens, a speeding car isn’t in the child’s path.
“This whole effort was supposed to be about traffic (control),” she says sadly, “but it’s gotten to be about who’s a good parent.”
Back on Middle Creek, Laura Kennedy says she and a majority of her neighbors – most of whom have young children – are in favor of having traffic controls on the street.
Although the two currently installed speed bumps can be a pain, she says, they have helped slow traffic.
However, she says, she has run into residents who were -- and who remain -- adamantly opposed to traffic controls. “One man even went through the neighborhood trying to collect signatures on a petition (to have the existing speed bumps removed,)” Mrs. Kennedy recalls.
Traffic control measures recommended by the Volkert study, which council members said they will implement, include:
Based on available information and the data collected, it is recommended that a speed hump be installed on Hidden Brook Lane between Windy Way and Shady Lane . It should include appropriate pavement markings and advance signing, in accordance with the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).
It is recommended that the speed bumps on Middle Creek Road be removed, and speed humps installed. It should include appropriate pavement markings and advance signing compliant with the MUTCD.
During a site visit, minimal traffic was observed on Arden Way . Arden Way is a neighborhood street but not a ‘cut-through’ path for non-resident vehicles. No action is recommended for Arden Way at this time.
Because of grade concerns, the installations of speed bumps or humps are mot recommended for the section of Inverness Dr./Glamis Circle , and on Hidden Brook between Whispering Pines and Middle Creek.
However, it is recommended that radar speed ‘feedback’ signs be installed in series with the speed limit signs on the downgrade side of the roadway: on Glamis Circle located around 1119 and 1123 Glamis Cir.
On Hidden Brook Lane , a recommended location would be in the vicinity of 33-37 Hidden Brook Lane.