Speeding is always going to be a problem within small towns and neighborhoods. I live in a small neighborhood that serves as a cut-through in between another series of neighborhoods and the main drag in my town. People are always speeding through it. My neighborhood Facebook group is constantly debating whether or not to lobby for speed bumps to be put in or, as some of my more ‘old school’ neighbors continue to propose, having a police presence to hand out speeding tickets. The speeding really is a problem. A small Pennsylvania community, Montgomery Township, has also been dealing with a speeding problem. So, they got creative. Officials painted new lines on the road. They painted new squiggly lines.
Residents in a small Pennsylvania community aren’t seeing straight … lines. Montgomery Township officials announced on March 28 that it had added squiggly lines to a problematic road to prevent drivers from speeding.
“New lines were painted on Grays Lane with signage and the installation of chicanes (delineators) to follow,” the Montgomery Township Facebook page shared. “These traffic calming measures are being installed due to the numerous complaints/concerns we receive from residents about the ‘speedway’ Grays Lane has become.”
Although the statement, shared a few days before April Fools’ Day, emphasized that this real traffic pattern design was “discussed at length with our Traffic Engineers, Highway Safety Officers, and Public Works,” many residents and curious drivers everywhere still couldn’t believe their eyes.
“Did nobody suggest speed bumps? Looks like you gave creative license to a class of kindergarteners,” one person commented on the Facebook post, while another wrote, “Was the road crew drunk when painting this? Lol.”
Another Facebook user expressed that this was no laughing matter for bicyclists, commenting, “I assume the [Highway Safety Officers] have never ridden a bicycle, because if they did they would be absolutely terrified by this lunacy. Hopefully they remove it before a cyclist is killed.”
Addressing the concerned replies, Montgomery Township Public Information Assistant Ava Komasz reiterated that the changes are, in fact, real.
“In response to many of the comments, yes, this is a legitimate precaution that has been put in place,” Komasz commented. “Our Highway Safety Officers and Traffic Engineers have determined that this is the best course of action for the area to ensure the safety of the local residents.”
Holy moly. Those truly do look so trippy! Look, there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm, but who on Earth let this one get out of committee? I looked into the science behind the squiggly lines a little bit more and they’re supposed to mimic the effects of speed bumps without providing the physical obstacle. Someone in the comments of the People article says that they have those squiggly lines in Bulle, Gruyère, Switzerland, but I couldn’t find anything online to back that up. A small village in France tried a variation of this, and while it didn’t slow down traffic overall among locals, it did work for tourists, who were understandably confused by it.
I feel like speed bumps probably would have done the job here! My first thought when I saw this was that drivers will eventually get used to ignoring the lines and continue to speed. However, Montgomery Township is apparently planning on following up by installing delineators (plastic columns) on the road as well, to physically enforce the winding path. That is hardcore. They mean business.
photos via Facebook and Instagram/Montgomery Township, PA
A small speed bump cost $15,000 20 years ago. That is a lot of money for small towns.
My first thought was cost and if you can get a similar effect through cheaper means then go for it.
Most people experience the world visually so if you can use visual tricks to change problematic behaviour it’s a win.
Perhaps they should have tried a stop sign at the intersection if they couldn’t afford speed bumps? Ludicrous.
When the new VA retirement home (where my grandfather lives) and the hospital across from it were being built, somebody decided to do even worse than this- the actually ROAD was built with several big curves in it to slow down speeders. Everybody hates it, of course, and now (this is about 12-15yrs later) there are proposals to create a straighter alternate road because of what it’s doing to the poor patients in the back of the ambulances.
Oh thank you for this, Rosie! I watch the British show “Escape to the Country” and it always puzzled me to see these zigzag lines on the streets of some of their market towns. Had no idea what they were and why.
So they’re speed deterrents. Interesting.
We bought a home in a older quiet neighborhood just an expressway exit down from lots of shopping and the airport. While walking our dogs we noticed several residential streets just deadend with barricades, and grass, and sometimes broken asphalt on the other side. We realized when they built all the shopping centers, to keep the neighborhood quiet and safe they deliberately cut off all traffic access through the neighborhood. I want to meet however decided that and hug them! So smart!
I suspect Waze and other navigation apps put more traffic pressure on these neighborhoods and side streets.
People just follow the app directions and don’t give much thought to when they are routed off thoroughfares and main routes, and just keep going with getting there quickly the main goal.
While traffic calming measures can be annoying, they can reduce risk of accidents.
That said, these squiggles would freak me out.
Isn’t that dangerous? Confusing a speeding vehicle sounds like a bad idea, making them swirl even more so.
I’d agree with a physical speed bump or a permanent police speeding camera. Those two can’t be ignored by regulars.
I agree with this being a total nightmare for people riding a bicycle. You will be forcing the bikes to move to the sidewalk which will put pedestrians at risk. Why don’t these traffic engineers ever take anything but cars into consideration.
Oh yikes, no thank you. This messes with my eyes so bad in just a picture, I can’t imagine what this is like driving. I give this a couple of months until the accidents start piling up.
The city I live in has been modifying traffic patterns during the last several years and I can tell you, those plastic columns come down pretty quick after they get hit. My street has bumps and people speed anyway and I feel like it puts wear on my junky old car. They have also tried reducing all the 2 lane roads into 1 lane roads and introducing curves, which actually felt more dangerous than anything else because it is distracting – not in a way that forces attention but in a way that takes my attention away from everything else happening in traffic. I don’t have good answers, but it seems like most of the things people are trying aren’t effective.
The busy county highway near my home borders a lake with a county park, and every summer they put up those rods, and it usually takes about a day for the first one to get knocked over. They’re a hazard for bicyclists because the rods are so high they have only a tiny aisle. At corners they force turning cars into oncoming lanes. (They used to come by and replace the fallen ones, but lately they don’t bother.) They do slow people down a bit, though, so that’s a positive effect.
Mixed traffic is hard, that’s why there are so many bad solutions out there. This one is at least visually funny.
Why not just install roundabouts at each of the intersections? That would slow traffic down on the street.
Roundabouts are relatively expensive to build and they take a lot of space, which in a neighbourhood like this is probabably private property. Speed bumps are much cheaper.
Speed bumps are tough on snow plowing equipment and I could see avoiding using them in some of the higher elevations of PA.