Speed Humps

A meeting to discuss plans to slow traffic on Tamar Drive and Majors Lane will be held at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Jeffers Hill Elementary School cafeteria.The meeting is sponsored by the Jeffers Hill PTA Safety Committee.Ed Walter, chief of traffic engineering, and George Frangos, project manager, will present the plans to the community.Proposals include: three raised intersections, a raised crosswalk and five speed humps.The raised intersections would be at Tamar Drive and Majors Lane, Tamar Drive and Old Montgomery Road, and Majors Lane and Old Montgomery Road.

Letter writer William Smith, who calls opponents of the proposed gas tax increase "whiners," had better take a look at how our taxes never seem to be used for the purposes they are assessed ("Gas tax brings out whiners," Oct. 19). If he thought about it, he might change his mind. Government waste is a bigger issue. I agree that our roads are in terrible condition. But how come jurisdictions such as Baltimore County spend money on "traffic calming" projects - islands and speed humps in the middle of two-lane residential streets - instead of repairing or paving those streets?

Instead of closing Augusta Avenue at Route 140, Carroll officials have opted for striping and signs to curtail traffic using the residential street as a shortcut to Westminster's main thoroughfare. Residents had petitioned the county to close the road at Route 140 because cars and large trucks speed along the side street as a shortcut from Route 97 south to Route 140 west. Residents backed away from the proposal at a public hearing last month. "Halfway through the meeting, we found out they don't want the road closed after all," said Doug Myers, county director of public works.

Facing a lack of clear guidelines, the Baltimore County Council is seeking countywide standards for installing "traffic-calming devices," the often contentious mechanisms used to slow cars in residential neighborhoods. Traffic calming is probably the No. 1 request of community groups throughout the county, councilmen and neighborhood leaders say, but the county's response has been haphazard and community reaction mixed. On Newburg Avenue in Catonsville in 1996, a group of residents began studying ways to slow down cars.

Carroll leaders traditionally have opposed speed deterrents such as humps, roundabouts and red-light cameras, but today, a new board of commissioners will have its first chance to air its views on adding "traffic calming" features to the busy roads of South Carroll. The commissioners will hear a number of methods for controlling speed and then will have time to express their ideas on speed control, said Douglas Myers, county director of public works. Myers said he would not ask the commissioners to set traffic policies for specific streets or subdivisions.

Seven years ago, Tim Robertson envisioned raising his family in one of the two houses he bought at the corner of Outing Avenue and 204th Street in Pasadena."

ONE OF the most hallowed articles of the Constitution consists of 12 simple words: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." In the more than 200 years since the so-called "takings" provision was ratified, American courts have developed a rich body of case law spelling out the details, restrictions, exceptions and limitations under which governments can take private property in the name of the public good - a jealously guarded principle among private property-rights advocates.

IT'S RED, an eight-sided shield sitting on a post at the intersection. The four-letter word in white capital letters is one that most people have learned by the time they are out of diapers.The object in question -- I hope it didn't puzzle anyone -- is a stop sign. It tells motorists (and bicyclists) to come to a one-second stop and look before proceeding into the intersection.The purpose is to prevent accidents, with other vehicles and with pedestrians.It is also an effective means of controlling the speed of traffic, along with that rectangular white sign with the legal speed limit in big black numerals.

DO CARS and SUVs zoom by your home, threatening life and limb? Have you ever wondered how to get some traffic calming installed? Jill Balthis, who lives on a street that has speed humps, wants more of the same. But she wondered how to start. "Does it really take the approval of the county executive to get a speed hump put in a road?" she asked. "There are many small children further down the street, and we still get people speeding by the houses. Is there anything that can be done since the humps are already on part of the road?"

Speeding is so endemic these days that there aren't enough police officers to satisfy all the complaints Howard County officials get about heedless motorists rushing through residential neighborhoods. "It's the No. 1 complaint in county government. The reality is, we all speed," said Del. Guy Guzzone, a former county councilman. Guzzone, like other state legislators, is expecting another General Assembly debate over legislation to allow local governments to install automated speed cameras that can safely catch more speeders - who would get expensive tickets but would not get points on their licenses - than any police radar team in history.