For neighbors who live just outside of school zones, a major frustration is drivers who use the streets to cut through and bypass the slower speeds. Is there anything illegal about this, especially when children are still walking and riding their bikes to school on those cut-through streets?
Anyone can use any street unless specifically prohibited otherwise. Now, of course, they can’t break traffic laws in doing so. The road hump program has been pretty successful in lowering driving speeds, and neighbors can actually petition for installing humps on certain streets.
Some people like them in their neighborhoods, and some don’t, and a lot of times we’re not able to put them in because they affect the emergency response routes. But if people want them and want to find out if it’s a possibility, they can call 311 and make a road hump request.
We’re also initiating a program to go out and review all the routes that children are walking, but it’s going to take us a while to get out and go to all the schools. The program will kick off mid-next year. Transportation officials will work with police, school administrators and engineers and design the routes we want kids to walk, and put in signage to support that design. It’s a more proactive approach rather than reactive. In the past, it has always been that people call and ask for a crossing, and we really need to do a more comprehensive review of which routes we want to get our kids on.
(Elizabeth Ramirez, assistant director in public works and transportation who oversees the transportation operations division, contributed to this answer.)
