A couple of accidents recently

mrincredible said:

According to a neighbor, there was a bad accident on Sunset Terrace yesterday. Apparently someone came flying down, smashed into a retaining wall where Sunset meets Colonial Terrace, then drove off with deployed airbags. 

Also today someone apparently flipped their car at the corner of South Orange Ave and Ridgewood Rd. 

Last week someone flipped their car on North Ridgewood at the top of Floods Hill. You can see a huge gouge in one of the trees where the car ran into it. 

To me, lately, I’ve seen an uptick in very aggressive driving in our two towns. It’s been getting progressively worse since the pandemic restrictions were lifted.  But it’s spiked in recent weeks. 

Besides speeding/aggressive driving, one of the underlying threads of these three accidents is poor road design.

The Ridgewood/South Orange Ave intersection is an accident waiting to happen. North Ridgewood is a well know area for speeding, and the retaining wall at the bottom of Sunset Terrace was built to stop cars from slamming into the house at the bottom of the hill.  What is being done to redesign the intersections with South Orange Avenue, or calm traffic on North Ridgewood and Sunset Terrace?  Or any of the other trouble spots in our area.  

Traffic calming is once again coming to Prospect Street in Maplewood.  Latest plan is to install bike lanes along the entire length from the Union border to the border with South Orange. Details still need to be finalized.  Proposed plan is on the town website.  

Traffic calming helps normal drivers.  If someone is dead set on being an **** no amount of traffic calming will help.

DanDietrich said:

Traffic calming helps normal drivers.  If someone is dead set on being an **** no amount of traffic calming will help.

Yea. Looking at Sunset Terrace, it’s just a residential street. What the heck are they supposed to do?

I agree that aggressive drivers will continue to be aggressive (or become even more so) when traffic calming measures are put into place. Just observe the area around CHS during the morning drop off time. It's incredibly dangerous now -- cars going every which way, making random K-turns, passing you on a residential street. You really don't know which direction a speeding car will be coming from!  (And this isn't the students driving -- it's their parents.)

mrincredible said:

DanDietrich said:

Traffic calming helps normal drivers.  If someone is dead set on being an **** no amount of traffic calming will help.

Yea. Looking at Sunset Terrace, it’s just a residential street. What the heck are they supposed to do?

Sunset Terrace is a very steep straight hill. I would add three speed bumps.

yahooyahoo said:

Sunset Terrace is a very steep straight hill. I would add three speed bumps.

I’ll buy that for a dollar.

Although I don’t know enough about road design to comment on the practicality of speed bumps on hills. Almost every speed bump I can think of is on a flat surface. Wouldn’t it be problematic in snow or icy conditions?

mrincredible said:

yahooyahoo said:

Sunset Terrace is a very steep straight hill. I would add three speed bumps.

I’ll buy that for a dollar.

Although I don’t know enough about road design to comment on the practicality of speed bumps on hills. Almost every speed bump I can think of is on a flat surface. Wouldn’t it be problematic in snow or icy conditions?

There are other roads in the area that have speed bumps on hills. I guess it would depend on the % grade, perhaps Sunset Terrace is too steep.

RichardR said:

I agree that aggressive drivers will continue to be aggressive (or become even more so) when traffic calming measures are put into place. Just observe the area around CHS during the morning drop off time. It's incredibly dangerous now -- cars going every which way, making random K-turns, passing you on a residential street. You really don't know which direction a speeding car will be coming from!  (And this isn't the students driving -- it's their parents.)

Do you think this is worse (and less safe for pedestrians/students) than it used to be before they added the bike lanes, and prevented parking and dropoff in front of CHS, along with making one-way drop-off areas?  

I'm asking because if their plan for calming actually increased the chaos and danger, it's something that should be noted. They are holding meetings for adding bike lanes/removing parking from Prospect St soon, and I'm curious about possible implications to the safety of pedestrians.

sprout said:

RichardR said:

I agree that aggressive drivers will continue to be aggressive (or become even more so) when traffic calming measures are put into place. Just observe the area around CHS during the morning drop off time. It's incredibly dangerous now -- cars going every which way, making random K-turns, passing you on a residential street. You really don't know which direction a speeding car will be coming from!  (And this isn't the students driving -- it's their parents.)

Do you think this is worse (and less safe for pedestrians/students) than it used to be before they added the bike lanes, and prevented parking and dropoff in front of CHS, along with making one-way drop-off areas?  

I'm asking because if their plan for calming actually increased the chaos and danger, it's something that should be noted. They are holding meetings for adding bike lanes/removing parking from Prospect St soon, and I'm curious about possible implications to the safety of pedestrians.

Protected bike lanes make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists by slowing down the average speed of vehicles on the road. Prior to the bike lane and traffic pattern changes, the high school drop off and pick up was total chaos. I saw many near misses. 

yahooyahoo said:

mrincredible said:

yahooyahoo said:

Sunset Terrace is a very steep straight hill. I would add three speed bumps.

I’ll buy that for a dollar.

Although I don’t know enough about road design to comment on the practicality of speed bumps on hills. Almost every speed bump I can think of is on a flat surface. Wouldn’t it be problematic in snow or icy conditions?

There are other roads in the area that have speed bumps on hills. I guess it would depend on the % grade, perhaps Sunset Terrace is too steep.

My latest idea for Sunset Terrace is to modify the traffic pattern.

Either make the street one-way uphill, but this would probably piss off local residents.  The alternative would be to close the road to local traffic only, cars would not be able to enter from Wyoming but people living on the street could drive in both directions when leaving their homes.

yahooyahoo said:

My latest idea for Sunset Terrace is to modify the traffic pattern.

Either make the street one-way uphill, but this would probably piss off local residents.  The alternative would be to close the road to local traffic only, cars would not be able to enter from Wyoming but people living on the street could drive in both directions when leaving their homes.

How would you regulate this?  Would you construct a staffed gate at  Wyoming and Sunset and require motorists show ID to enter?  What would be the impact on delivery drivers, contractor vehicles, ride shares, police/fire vehicles, trash pick-up, school buses, municipal vehicles and others who serve the needs of Sunset Terrace residents?  

joan_crystal said:

yahooyahoo said:

My latest idea for Sunset Terrace is to modify the traffic pattern.

Either make the street one-way uphill, but this would probably piss off local residents.  The alternative would be to close the road to local traffic only, cars would not be able to enter from Wyoming but people living on the street could drive in both directions when leaving their homes.

How would you regulate this?  Would you construct a staffed gate at  Wyoming and Sunset and require motorists show ID to enter?  What would be the impact on delivery drivers, contractor vehicles, ride shares, police/fire vehicles, trash pick-up, school buses, municipal vehicles and others who serve the needs of Sunset Terrace residents?  

This scenario already exists on West End Road right off South Orange Ave in South Orange. Drivers coming down the hill on SO Avenue are not allowed to turn right onto West End Road to avoid the light at SO Ave and Wyoming Ave.

yahooyahoo said:

My latest idea for Sunset Terrace is to modify the traffic pattern.

Either make the street one-way uphill, but this would probably piss off local residents.  The alternative would be to close the road to local traffic only, cars would not be able to enter from Wyoming but people living on the street could drive in both directions when leaving their homes.

If you outlaw driving downhill, only outlaws will drive downhill. 

A more radical idea is to close the access from Wyoming directly to Sunset Terrace. And throw in Evergreen Place as well. Make both of them dead ends. Rip up ten feet of road and make a little green space. Maybe put a decorative gate like at the intersection of Midland Boulevard and Summit Ave across town. 

I lived on Summit Ave between Elmwood and Parker.  We constantly saw people flying down Summit to avoid Prospect traffic. We now live on a dead end. The difference is unbelievable. I think whatever inconvenience the people on Sunset and Evergreen endured would be waaaay compensated by the stress reduction of living on a non-thruway. 

Bike lanes on Prospect - pure silliness. If the goal is traffic calming, install the bump-outs like is done on Millburn Avenue, Millburn. I thought that was the plan about 6 months ago before the plastic tubes were installed,

Prospect Street already has some bump outs.  They don't do anything to calm traffic, though they do make it easier to cross the street.

The way people drive through town I wish we could build a tunnel from Springfield Ave at Vauxhall road that comes up somewhere in West Orange. And another that goes underground near Seton Hall and then follows underneath South Orange Ave and comes up at Cherry Lane. 

Yes I’m being facetious. But I have often fantasized about an express tunnel under South Orange Ave for the speed demons who want to get through town as fast as possible. 

yahooyahoo said:

This scenario already exists on West End Road right off South Orange Ave in South Orange. Drivers coming down the hill on SO Avenue are not allowed to turn right onto West End Road to avoid the light at SO Ave and Wyoming Ave.

that's literally three houses, one of which has a driveway on Wyoming Avenue.  It's maybe 200 feet long.