Council to Reconsider Humps to Slow Traffic

City Council members say they will reconsider a plea from Fletcher Avenue residents to install the city’s first speed humps on the street. They rejected such a request five months ago.

The council this week heard a city-hired traffic consultant’s proposal to install three 8-foot-wide traffic islands in the middle of the avenue to force speeding drivers to slow down.

The traffic consultant was hired to suggest alternatives after the council refused to endorse the speed humps in December, claiming that such measures would divert traffic to neighboring streets.

But after hearing about the islands Wednesday, City Council members said that at their next meeting they will consider humps as a solution to speeding commuters.

“I am willing to reconsider speed humps,” Councilman Harry Knapp, who originally opposed the humps, said in an interview Friday. “I’m convinced something has to be done on that street.”

Knapp said he believes the islands would be worse for traffic flow than speed humps and would cause motorists to take other streets. “I can see the benefits of speed humps that slow you to 25 mph now. These islands aren’t the answer,” Knapp said.

Fletcher Avenue homeowners have complained that their street seems like a freeway during rush hour as commuters use what is one of the few roads cutting across Huntington Drive as a shortcut to and from Los Angeles. Last year they submitted a petition to the city with 91% of residents supporting three 12-foot-wide, 2 5/8-inch-high humps.