When It Comes to Speed Bumps, It’s No Easy Road

Extolled on one hand as the provider of “a great service” and maligned on the other as “grotesque bumps in the street,” a series of traffic humps has split residents of the southwest corner of Beverly Hills and presented the City Council with a dilemma over their promised removal.

At a four-hour hearing Tuesday night attended by about 100 people, the council listened to impassioned testimony from city officials and dozens of residents, many of whom praised the speed humps--installed last July on a supposedly temporary basis--for slowing traffic and improving safety on residential streets.

Joe Stabler, who lives directly in front of a hump on Roxbury Drive, called them “one of the nicest things to happen on our block in a long time” and acknowledged feeling “perverse pleasure” at the sight of vehicles forced to slow down.

City Parking and Traffic Commissioner Leonard Wasserstein also praised the humps for serving a great purpose.

Others, however, bitterly blamed the humps--and the city’s Livable Streets Test Program under which they were installed--for increased traffic congestion, noise and exhaust fumes, sleep loss, for attracting roller-skaters, and causing at least one unreported motorcycle accident.

One Rodeo Drive resident termed them grotesque bumps, whereas another speaker, Joni Gitland, called them “a blight to our tree-lined streets.” Gitland complained specifically of being awakened nightly by the crashing sounds of pickup trucks and other cargo-laden vehicles negotiating the humps.

“Unless you live in front of one of these things,” she said, “you have no idea how awful it can be.”

The speed humps were installed last July in a test area bounded by Wilshire and Olympic boulevards on the north and south, between Beverly and Moreno drives.

They were followed two months later by multiple temporary turn restrictions designed to keep boulevard traffic from cutting through side streets.

Originally, the city promised that the humps would be removed after the trial period, which ended last month.

But now the council--faced with leaner economic times and the realization that the supposedly temporary humps could last as long as 10 years--finds itself questioning the wisdom of spending $25,000 or more to remove them, particularly if it decides later to incorporate the humps into a permanent traffic control program.

Several speakers suggested that the issue threatens the future credibility of the council.

The decision whether to remove the humps is expected at next Tuesday’s council meeting.