The Peoria City Council Tuesday night heard a presentation on a new traffic calming policy that would include more city streets.
City engineer Andrea Klopfenstein said only low-traffic residential streets were previously eligible for traffic calming requests. There appears to be a demand for an expansion of the roadways covered. Since 2019, the city has received 115 requests.
She said there's two main options to slow down traffic: engineering and enforcement.
"Enforcement would be someone out there issuing tickets being visible on the street. Engineering is the built things that we could do to help slow traffic down," she said.
The new traffic calming policy aims to better coordinate the efforts between public works and the police department to slow down traffic and make roadways safer not only for motorists, but for bicyclists and pedestrians, too.
Public education also is a component of the updated policy. Klopfenstein said messages about slowing down might be better received when they come from neighbors, rather than city officials.
"What we're going to try and utilize is the neighborhood to help control those speeds, and get the neighborhood what they want in their own streets," she said.
A new process requires a petition for the city to take action, rather than individual complaints. Klopfenstein said that helps the city determine if the concern is a shared neighborhood concern before moving forward with countermeasures.
Fourth District council member Andre Allen said speeding complaints are one of the most common calls he receives from constituents. He praised the new policy's collective approach.
"We need your help. We need police and we need our neighbors in order to really address this issue throughout our neighborhoods," he said.
At-large council member Kiran Velpula agreed. He said getting buy-in from the whole neighborhood through petitioning assures that speeding is truly a shared concern in an area, rather than just one person leading the charge. He said he also is placing hopes on new waves of police recruits.
"Hopefully, we'll be able to see more of that so we can actually build a traffic enforcement division in our police department again," he said. "So I think this is addressing the reality of the situation and also allowing us the flexibility to to adjust it as that reality changes."
