By Tom Seacord, HNA Traffic Committee Chair
Neighbors, There were several questions at the Annual meeting last week about speed mitigation on Highland View, E Braemere and Hearthstone. We discussed that there is money available from the Highlands Cove mitigation funds and that we could use that money for speed mitigation on Highland View and E Braemere where the volume and speed is (likely) the result of the Highlands Cove development. Using the money for any purpose would require authorization of the HNA Executive Committee, but the question for the executive committee would be: "should the funds be used for mitigation on Hearthstone too?", where the speed is not the result of Highlands Cove traffic - but rather, likely more use of Bob's trail. We can take this question up at a later time. Before I go further, a couple of prefaces: (1) Speed bumps are not permissible on Highland View Drive or E Braemere because they are collector streets. Speed bumps, however, are an option for Hearthstone which is not a collector street. (2) The radar speed signs are permissible on any of these streets. I reached out to ACHD to verify the current costs for the radar speed signs (~$2,500 each) and speed bumps (~3,500 each). ACHD also indicated that: (1) ACHD's radar speed sign program allows ACHD to procure and install signs if there is a need an and expected benefit, rather than funding these measures through the HNA. (2) ACHD plans to evaluate traffic in the neighborhood again after Highlands Cove is built out and they believe that the funds we have (ACHD says we have $20,000, the City says we have $60,000) are intended for that purpose. So - we need to clarify the value and the use with the City and ACHD. I had also asked if ACHD would help us determine where the speed signs belonged to achieve the best mitigation. By their response (and past responses), I suspect that they don't intend to do this until Highlands Cove is built out. Also, I suspect that we will also struggle to get ACHD to evaluate the need/benefit of the radar speed signs (and fund them through their radar speed sign program) before Highlands Cove is built out. So, we are probably on our own – to figure out where any *HNA funded* radar speed signs belong. All this said, here's what I think we should do: (1) If you would like to pursue interim action (before buildout of Highlands Cove) to mitigate speed, we can clarify who should fund the speed mitigation and if the existing funds can be used for this purpose. I think we want to do this based on what I've heard. (2) We can reconvene the traffic committee to evaluate how we would like to address these issues. I had one volunteer contact me about a vacancy on the committee, if you are interested, my email is [email protected] More to come… |
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