Until last Year the first block of Sargeant from Atwood to Woodland was a one-way street. A barrier was erected (topped with planters and later, cement blocks) just past 300 Sargeant that had been there at least twenty years. It was ugly but it abated the traffic issues (namely speeding) that plague the rest of the area.
Sometime last year the city removed the barrier without consulting any residents here. Now we get two-way traffic comprised of speeding cars (up to 50 mph), box trucks and semis, all trying to bypass the *SIX* traffic lights that span the three blocks of Woodland Street that front the St. Francis Hospital complex.
Previously, trucks took Homestead but now more pass through here, and probably 80% of passenger vehicles going through exceed the speed limit (straight up the middle of the street which is absent of demarked lanes). I can barely back out of my driveway safely since cars speed up even more when they see someone trying to back out, and I've had cars trying to cut by on my right when I am slowing down to take a *signaled* right turn into the driveway.
Less than an hour ago a dog got hit and died just in front of my driveway (the address is the house the dog's owner's were visiting -- they had just gotten out of the car an the dog was somehow in the road). According to a resident the driver was speeding and looked like she was going to attempt to get away. I did not witness the incident but the aftermath. I've been waiting for a child to get hit or an out-of-control car to hit a pedestrian and we've finally gotten our warning. (In the past, even when the street was one-way, there were a few incidents of speeding cars crashing into parked cars.)
We need someone from traffic planning to adddress this issue and consider again closing the street off or at least have the decency to install speed bumps like nearly all the streets in the West End have. That would have been a suitable replacement if the city wanted to institutre this change without asking us.
Further, Ashley Street is more equipped to handle this traffic, as it had been doing already, than Sargeant, since there are only two apartment buildings, parking lots and the St. Francis emergency entrance in the first block of Ashley, versus twenty-one houses, many children, numerous individuals walking up and down the street from the bus stop at the Woodland intersection and at least a hundred residents who are sick of speeding, noise, rumbling trucks and disruption.
The potential of encountering the police cars that are frequently in the emergency room driveway would also be a deterrent to speeding on that street. We should not have to suffer over here in favor of St. Francis.
I'd upload a photo of the dog's blood but within five minutes of the incident about twenty cars had already run through it, most not slowing down or the least bit curious about a half gallon of fresh blood in the middle of the street and a dead dog on the curb
