The last two days have been very busy. Let’s start with the three wrecks that happened on Trailwood Drive on Monday (and I’ll follow-up with some Lineberry Park stuff later this week).
Yeah…so I get this email from the Trailwood Community to find out that there were 3, yes, 1-2-3 wrecks that happened on Trailwood Drive. In one day. Ironically, within three driveways of each other. I believe that no one was seriously hurt. (This time.) I actually saw the tail end of one around 10 AM on my way into work.
This really irritated me. Now I’m on a mission. And for those of you that know me, you don’t want me on a mission. (Remember when Lineberry Drive was half paved – yeah, that kind of mission.) So I revisit some old emails from my good neighbor Tom Kwak. He presented to City Council back in December 2006 requesting that the speed limit be reduced to 35 MPH. This presentation. The Council was hands down in favor. Now it was time to work the NCDOT magic wand.
So over the course of December 2006 and January 2007, Councilor Crowder worked with Steve Johnson, our NCDOT District Engineer, to increase the safety of this segment of Trailwood and reduce the speed limit. The end result after the NCDOT study was supposed to be the following: “the speed limit will be 35 mph from Tanager south and 40 mph to the north.” As far as I know, the speed limit on said mentioned 40 MPH portion was still 45 MPH today (6/13/07). That note came to me on March 11, 2007. Yep, that’s right 3 months ago.
To make a long story short, I wrote very precise and as-short-as-possible email to the entire Raleigh City Council, the City Manager, the CoR Transportation Director (Mike Kennon), NCDOT (Battle Whitley), Rep. Ross, and some contacts at the N&O. So far, Mayor Meeker has responded and I’ve gotten his support. Councilor Crowder is supportive of these efforts and we’ve discussed this over the phone. Councilor Isley has responded and is supportive. Rep. Ross is very concerned with this and I am directing most of the efforts to work with her at the State level since this is the best route to work with NCDOT. Additionally, don’t be surprise if you see something in the N&O Triangle Troubleshooter.
So there are a lot of moving parts to this, but I believe I’ve crafted some decisive goals and success points. The goals are the following:
- Get the NCDOT to post the promised speed limit (which I believe is supposed to be 40 MPH instead of 45 MPH)
- Re-evaluate the situation that is in the NCDOT jurisdiction, and
- Have concentrated enforcement on this segment over the summer
Please feel free to email me with suggestions or feedback. This is a unique stretch of road in our area and it’s easy and tempting to speed. Guilty as charged. Just take your foot off the gas and you can easily get to 40 MPH down some of these hills. However, I think that all the residents that travel this road should lead by example and travel safely at the posted speed limit. I’ve noticed that the motorist that I hold up behind me, sit at the traffic light just like me. There’s no rush. Live Aloha.