Columbia City Council votes against adding speed humps to Russell Boulevard
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
An effort to add five-speed humps along Russell Boulevard failed at the Monday night Columbia City Council meeting.
The council voted 4-3 against the installation of five speed-humps on the busy road between Broadway Street and Rollins Road.
About 10 residents voiced their comments during the meeting tonight with the majority opposing the addition stating that they have not seen an issue.
"I think that on a whole that this is a solution looking for a problem there hasn't been any accidents or injuries," one resident said.
It was noted during the council comments that 18 Russell Boulevard residents signed a petition to request Columbia Public Works to look at traffic calming solutions for the street.
Columbia Public Works' proposal to add the speed humps after it found that Russell Boulevard scored as the sixth-highest priority project within the 2021 Neighborhood Traffic Management Program according to the Council's agenda.
NTMP used a scoring method using a number of factors to determine the safety of a road. Factors include speed, volume, pedestrian generators in the area, proximity to schools, bike routes and recent crash history.
NTMP scored Russell Boulevard with 76 out of a possible 100, scoring in the 85th percentile for speeds upwards of 40 mph with more than 700 vehicles traveling on the road per day. The road's current speed limit is 20 MPH.
Two interested party meetings have been held so far for this project.
Staff gathered information from the public and listened to the potential solutions during its first interested party meeting. The agenda states "the majority of those in attendance and providing comments were supportive of traffic calming efforts."
Following the first meeting, a "pop-up" traffic calming event was held in the neighborhood by the transportation advocacy group, Local Motion.
Following the "pop-up" event, residents voiced their comments in the second meeting, where a mix of support and opposition for the project were expressed.
Two 25 mph "Kid Friendly" speed limit signs were installed along the street at the request of several public comments.
However, the traffic studies found that there was no noticeable decrease in speed along Russell Boulevard.
The project was estimated to cost $20,000.
