Glendale City Council approves more lenient speed-hump criteria

Revisions to Glendale’s traffic-calming program that will make it easier to install speed humps on streets near schools and parks were approved by City Council this week.

In February, the Transportation and Parking Commission recommended updates to the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program’s speed hump criteria, particularly adjacent to schools and parks, after years of calls from the community to council about speeding issues.

The Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program, or NTCP, was created in 1996 to give the city tools to minimize speeding, cut-through traffic and accidents in residential areas and outline criteria for different traffic calming measures. Speed humps, which are similar to speed bumps but are slightly lower and placed at a longer driving distance, are the most common measure used. The program hadn’t been updated since 2004.

Three of 12 speed-hump criteria were changed, including lowering the percentage of consensus required for installation by residents from 75% to 67%, reducing average daily traffic volume required from 1,000 vehicles per day to 500 daily and adjusting speed criteria from 15% of vehicles operating at or beyond 30 mph per day to 10%.

One-way streets with one or two lanes near schools and parks will also now be eligible for speed humps.

“There will be more streets that qualify for street humps, especially around schools and parks,” said Roubik Golanian, assistant city manager who was the city’s public works director prior to his recent promotion. ”And based on our historical records, we had, in the past, received requests within the vicinity of schools where, under the existing requirements, the streets didn’t qualify. We’ll revisit those and, if they meet the requirements, we’ll proceed with the installation.”

Residents have also called council members to complain about speeding on arterial streets, such as Glendale Boulevard and Colorado Street, but the NTCP does not apply to those streets.

Depending on the size of a street, it can cost between $2,000 and $3,000 to install a speed hump. The NTCP already has $50,000 in funding for the 2017-18 fiscal year, and Golanian said he doesn’t think the city will exceed that amount, even with the increase in speed humps that may come with these revisions.

Golanian said residents can initiate the process of requesting installation of a speed hump on their street by calling Glendale’s Public Works Department at (818) 548-3945 or creating a service request at https://bit.ly/2s7XUDg.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Twitter: @r_valejandra