Neighborhood Residents Turn to City Council with Concerns about Better Traffic Solutions.

The residents of Radcliffe Drive in College Park, Md. are not pleased with the possible re-installment of pavement striping in their neighborhood. On Wednesday Nov. 12 at 7 p.m., residents took to city hall to voice their oppositions at the city council meeting.

Radcliffe Drive, which is located between Edmonton Road and Knoxville Drive, is a residential neighborhood with a high flow of traffic.

According to Steve Halpern, the College Park city engineer, the issue of traffic flow in the neighborhood began in 2005. Residents petitioned the city to take a closer look at the speeding problem on their street. After conducting a traffic study, he concluded that in fact, there was a speeding problem of over 30 miles per hour (mph).

“At that time I recommended three speed hump. The majority of the residents preferred other options,” said Halpern.

To keep the neighborhood safe from traffic violators, the city put in place pavement striping as a way to keep the traffic calmer. Last year, when the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) replaced the water main on Radcliffe Drive, the street was resurfaced resulting in the pavement striping being removed.

Before the WSSC was able to replace the striping, the city received a petition, from residents, not to do so.

“This past August; I performed another traffic count at the same location. The study revealed that the average daily traffic decreased 22 percent, from 324 vehicles a day to 252,” Halpern stated.

Along with his findings, Halpern learned that the amount of vehicles exceeding the speed limit by 5 mph had also decreased by 44 percent.

Due to the significant decrease in traffic flow and speed limit, Halpern said the pavement striping should not be a re-installed.

Just down the road from where the calming strips used to lay, on the 7400 block, lives Joyce Quandt.

“Instead of being traffic calming, I believe that they were more traffic-confusing,” Quandt said.

Quandtsaidthe stripes created the illusion that the street was a one-way and caused drivers turmoil when another car was driving towards them.

“You tend to go down the center of the road instead of going to the right,” said Jeff Quandt, of the same neighborhood.

Quandt, who travels up and down his street at least twice a day, when going to and coming from work, also noticed the confusion that the stripes caused.

“I think it’s more of a danger than anything positive,” he added.

It seemed the majority of residents at Wednesday’s meeting felt unanimously about keeping their street free of pavement stripping, until they heard from Gerald Borgia.

“I walk everyday and I’ve almost been hit several times,” said Borgia.

Borgia who lives in the 7300 block of Radcliffe Drive, has experienced the traffic issue first hand. He said living in a neighborhood with no sidewalk, which caused people to walk in the street, it made a traffic calmer necessary, such as pavement striping.

“I’ve come to love them. I see them as protection for me, so that people know what to do,” he added.

Borgia also said the “confusion” [of seeing another car coming towards them] is a positive. When drivers see a car driving at them, their first instinct is to slow down.

Depending on whether or not city council members decide to re-install pavement striping, create a new traffic calmer, or leave the street as is, their decision must keep the neighborhood safe from traffic issues, while trying to please residents. With the different viewpoints of the Radcliffe neighborhood residents, the College Park city council was left with lot to think about.