A sign on Kensginton Street. In the distance you can see a few others.
Residents on Kensington Street in West Newton have apparently taken speed into their own hands. They printed up and posted signs that effectively change the speed limit to 15 mph. The signs read “15 MPH Please Drive Slowly!!!” That’s 5 mph slower than the school zone at Horace Mann Elementary School a couple of blocks away, which posts speeds of 20 mph when school is in session.
I asked around and was told that since the street often acts as a cut-through for people driving from Waltham Street to Watertown Street, they wanted to slow down speeding drivers. A neighbor told me that one person in the neighborhood asked others to put the signs in their yard, they did. As far as that resident understands, no one has complained and drivers seem to be slowing down.
The city also put up electronic signs that display speed at the corner of Kensington and Watertown Street with another facing the opposite direction a few blocks closer to West Newton Square, so speed is clearly an issue in the area. 
No one has complained about the signs, to my knowledge, and the resident I spoke with says that people appear to be driving slower, but I do wonder how legal this is and what would happen if other residents on other streets started doing the same thing.
A search of the city website doesn’t turn up any requests to the Traffic Council on the part of Kensington Street (a few things come up for Kensington Ave, but that’s a different location), but it’s possible I’m missing something.
I want to thank the Newton Police Department for setting up electronic speed signs and enhancing enforcement along this stretch of Watertown Street, where my family and I have lived for the past 18 years. There has also been enhanced enforcement and electronic speed limits signs on Eddy Street, which is a popular cut through from Washington Street to Watertown Street, that many drivers use to get to Eliot Avenue, which is another popular cut through to Waltham Street.
I believe that the statutory speed limit on thickly settled streets, such as Kensington/Warwick, Randlett Park and Eliot Avenue, is 30 MPH. On Fairway Drive, which is another popular cut through between Watertown Street and Waltham Street, and on Cross Street, which is a cut through between Watertown Street and Washington Street, the Traffic Council has reduced the posted speed limits to 25 MPH. Excessive speed on these side streets is a recurrent problem, particularly after school starts in the Fall, when drivers seek to avoid the traffic lights at the Horace Mann School and in West Newton Square.
I encourage residents of these street to contact me at [email protected] if they are interested in reducing speed limits on their streets.
The most interesting apart of this apparent citizen action – to me, anyway – is that it appears to be working. So for that aspect, bravo. Might the city take note, in particular towards doing something similar for other cut-through streets that have this problem (Jefferson St, aka “Jefferson Speedway,” in Newton Corner is one in my neck of the woods)?
Side note: – I think I need a good village map, as I have friends on Kensington and always thought that to be Newtonville, but understand the border must be nearby- I guess it depends which way you are coming from (I’m Watertown St.-side) which way you perceive it.
Doug, Kensington Street is in the West Newton 02465 zip code, even though part of Watertown Street is in Newtonville 02460. Everything west of Albemarle Road is also in Ward 3, which is West Newton.
If residents are interested in reducing speed limits or parking restriction on their streets, they should contact the Traffic Council and file a petition or contact their aldermen.
A few years ago, a speeding car failed to navigate a blind turn and hit our neighbors tree on Charles St. In Auburndale. It was the last straw for us, having experienced speeding drivers here for years. So I drafted a petition to Traffic council signed by a dozen or so neighbors, asking for a speed bump at the blind turn. It was denied on the most incredible grounds: traffic volumes are not high enough on this street to warrant action.
But there is a process that citizens need to follow. Letting folks just arbitrarily decide they know what speed limits should be would lead to chaos if it became widespread.
@Chuck, the signs are totally illegal, of course, but I like the vigilante action just the same.
@Ted, unless I’m mistaken, Traffic Council has very little appetite for motions to alter the speed limit, as their hands are tied by the state. The city has no control over speed limits and must petition the state. Under current state law, speed limit is typically set according to how people drive, not how we’d like them to drive. Can you reference the traffic council action? All I see is a petition for a 4-way stop. The 25 mph yellow signs in place are advisory, therefore the actual speed limit is still 30.
Nathan, the Fire Department has consistently opposed speed bumps as traffic control measures because of possible damage to fire trucks and injuries to firefighters who are speeding to the scene of a fire to protect property and people.
Dan, you are right there is a process for people to follow to get posted speed limits and enhanced traffic enforcement. But there is also a competing First Amendment right to express oneself. I seriously doubt motorists will mistake these signs for official speed limit signs. On the other hand, posting “official” looking traffic signs, or painting stop lines and stencilling the word “STOP” at intersections (both of which have happened from time to time in Newton) are neither legal nor a legitimate exercise of the right of Free Speech. Anyone who doubts it should talk to the Billerica selectman who ran into trouble for painting crosswalks with green house paint.
How do you get on this list for one of those electronic signs and more traffic enforcement? I live on Florence Street, which people treat like a long exit ramp from Route 9. They are either driving the same speed as they did on Route 9 or are so annoyed at how slow they had to go that they speed up on our nicely paved roadway. The speed limit is technically 30 mph, but I suspect only those who live off in our little neighborhood actually pay attention to it. Cars and trucks (as well as some buses) go SO fast. And that doesn’t include the plain bad drivers, like the one in the car I saw drive around a school bus just a second after it stopped loading and was beginning to accelerate. Geesh…
Ted, Nathan’s case is exactly where the fire department should NOT object. It’s the arterials and major routes the fire department would often have to take where speed bumps would be at issue.
Hoping you can clarify also about your expectations for Traffic Council action. Almost all of Newton (perhaps all of Newton?) would be classified as a thickly settled district. The only exceptions to the 30 mph speed limit are extreme curves and roads with higher prevailing speeds. Other slower speed limits are probably carried over from many decades ago and would be raised if revisited.
Sue, I would suggest that you contact either the NPD or your alderman.
In regards to the speed bumps, the protest on behalf of the fire department puzzles me. I live next to one of those “paper streets” that Newton has dotted around. It’s an unpaved road that is halfheartedly maintained by the city but not officially owned by the city. The street has two very deep dips that come back no matter how much dirt the city throws at it. It’s adjacent to just 4 properties and is not actually necessary for connecting two streets (there are several other access points).
Still, I’ve seen the fire trucks negotiating it.
I don’t get the argument that it’s Ok to put up signs that are in conflict with the city posted signs. Sounds like folks in the area actually think it’s had some effect. How about placing signs that say the speed limit is higher than posted. Is that still my first amendment right to do?
Your argument, as an alderman, surprises me.
It certainly raises a number of questions. Can I put up a “No Parking” sign in front of my house? What about a “Do Not Enter” sign on the unpaved road adjacent to my property (see comment above)? What if an entire street decides that their road should be one-way? Also, what constitutes “on your property” in terms of signs? Does the tree-lawn qualify as public, since it’s on the side of the sidewalk? Must a sign be on your immediate property?
Yet, if we limit these signs, what does that mean for the “Support Newton Educators” signs or political signs?
Dan, what would you have the city do? Arrest them? Fine them? Publicly humiliate them by putting them in pillory stocks?
I have been advised by the law department on numerous occasions, including quite recently, that residents have First Amendment rights to display privately owned, noncommercial signs on their priate property and that the city is generally not going to intervene. Maybe the law department would take a different tack here, but the Constitution and Bill of Rights are intended to protect individual rights and balance them with the legitimate exercise of government authority. Now, that said, these residents should at the very least move those signs off of the berm, which is city property, onto their own property because the city can and will remove them if they are on the berm.
Adam and Chuck, when some speed tables were installed in Lower Falls, I believe it was, a firefighter was injured and the fire truck damaged when the truck hit one on the way to a fire. Again, it is a balance of public safety concerns. There are speed tables and speed bumps at certain locations that have been allowed, but they are few and far between. But that is something to take up with the Mayor’s office and the Traffic Council.
Speed bumps are made with cutouts so that cars that slow down can go through without hitting the bump. It’s not rocket science. This could be sized for fire engines.
My bigger concern is the mindset of traffic council, which requires more traffic volume before addressing safety. So many things about transportation in Newton are backward.
Chuck, clearly these signs are all illegal. Homeowners and businesses aren’t allowed to put signs on the berm in the first place (it’s city property)
Nathan, Ted, the concerns raised by the fire department are real — they cite the weight of a full pumper truck going over a speed bump, particularly at high speeds — but other communities manage to deal with it. You wouldn’t put calming measures in front of a traffic station or on a route frequently taken by emergency vehicles. Traffic Council uses that logic. Nathan’s speed “lumps” are one solution, but on a dead-end street like his, it shouldn’t be a problem. Nathan, don’t blame the traffic council. The Board of Aldermen (PS&T) has been the obstacle here.
Still, there’s lots of misconceptions about speed limits and what the city can and can’t do. It worries me when Aldermen are advising citizens to do things which are counter productive. Ted, hoping you can correct me on this. Did something change recently?
What really matters isn’t the posted speed limit, which can be easily ignored and rarely enforced, but the actual design of the road.
I agree that lawn signs on your own property are protected by the First Amendment. I don’t think they are a particularly effective way to deal with speeders. The stand-up image of a child at play that some residents put in the road, is much more likely to grab a driver’s attention. They’re not legal, but they are effective, and I’d encourage concerned parents to use them. If I had my way, the speed limit would be 20 mph on every side street in Newton, although I agree with Adam that the best way to slow driver’s down is road design.
I always find it funny that whenever speeding is an issue, speed bumps are always seen as the obvious solution or even “Hey, let’s just lower the speed limit! That will get people to slow down”, disregarding the legal process it takes to get these types of changes done or how speed limits are established. For speed bumps, even though there has not been anything formalized stating that speed bumps CANNNOT be used, Police, Fire are vocal opponents and even the old public works director didn’t want to install them. Plus, the city has a traffic council policy in place for traffic calming measures which limits the locations where they could even be installed. They have to meet 3 criteria – traffic volumes of over 1,000 cars per day, a measured speed equal or greater than 9 MPH over the posted speed limit, and it has to be a minor collector or local street. Plus, drivers are not so set in their ways that they wouldn’t just move one street over to avoid them, pushing the problem onto the next street, and then the next, and then further down the line.
I do applaud the street for this kind of proactive approach to deter excessive speed though, instead of sitting on their hands and filing petition after petition, they got out there and are telling people to slow down while on this street. While not the 15 MPH signs are not enforcecable they do help slow down traffic.
We live on a short road that connects Chestnut Street to Quinobequin Road. Frequently there are drivers who whoosh past our house with speed limit abandon. So, we have gathered signatures from our neighborhood and have submitted them to the Traffic Counsel to ask them to help us with some street re-design or lower travel limits. Maybe we will get them. Maybe not. But we have learned some other effective LEGAL measures to calm the traffic with neighborly cooperation. There are now cars parked on our narrow street. All of them would fit in our driveways, but when the cars are parked on the street, drivers must slow down to manoeuver around them. A neighbor also purchased and displays a “Slowski”, an adorable neon standing turtle holding a “slow down” sign. Other suggestions include leaving an old, rusty, throw-away bike lying on the street berm to fool drivers into thinking kids are nearby or erecting a basketball hoop near the sidewalk and leaving an old basketball near the street. I just thought of another remedy: a sign that has large letters, saying “FREE” with much smaller words below that a driver would have to slow down to read that say something like “smiles to you for slowing down and making my neighborhood safer!” Can any others of you think of LEGAL ways to reach rushing drivers?
The police department has told me time and again that the best way to slow traffic on a residential street is to park your cars in front of your house during the day. Vehicles traveling either way have to slow down. And it is perfectly legal, unless there is a parking restriction or snow emergency.
Adam, further to your question, road design can influence speed and safety. In addition to posting the speed limit, neckdowns, raised crosswalks, even restriping can effectively lower travel speeds. I am still not persuaded that speed bumps are always the answer.
I disagree that reducing and posting speed limits where it is warranted is “counter productive.” Enforcement is usually effective short term. Something else the police department tells me all the time: whenever they step up enforcement in a particular area, the majority of speeders are usually people who live in the neighborhood. So I suggest talking to your neighbors, too.
Ted, specifically, can you provide information on TC reducing the speed limit on Fairway Drive, if that did happen? I was suggesting that encouraging residents to appeal to TC for a reduced speed limit is counter-productive. It’s very rare that it’s warranted, and expectations should be set accordingly. It doesn’t help to clog the TC docket, and this is the sort of thing that I think has led to a lot of misunderstandings about the role of TC. Whether posted speed limit signs themselves are of much use is another matter. Local enforcement is extremely limited and, at best, police will send a cruiser “to send a message not even write tickets. Pretty useless long-term.
In Nonantum the residents control the color of the striping, in West Newton the speed limit.
And Ted, I’m with you on speed bumps not always being the answer. They’re probably the least desirable of all the measures you mention.
When we lived in CA there was a big sign campaign to slow traffic – “Be an Angel, Drive 25”. Speed was recorded before and during the campaign – the signs had no effect (same amount of speed before and during).
The use of signs to modify traffic has been studied frequently, without fines and enforcement, the results I’ve seen have always been zero change. With the exception of a recent study in China: “How to Stop Jaywalking? Rude Slogans Work Best, Chinese University Study Says” “Please take the bridge” reduced jaywalking 0.24% “If your ugly, you jaywalk” reduced jaywalking 30%.
I’m guessing it’s just a temporary effect due to the novelty of the sign…
I also don’t think that speed bumps are always the best answer, although I think they would be appropriate in the location I mentioned. Parked cars and bumpouts, on the other hand, can slow traffic but also create new dangers for bicyclists (dooring and forced convergence into crunch zones).
I appreciate the efforts by the residents of Kensington St. Until a few years ago, I lived on a street that was a cut-through between Comm Ave. and Ward Street that had a problem with speeders, especially in the late afternoon and early evening. There were lots of kids, including my own, playing on that street and the speeders put their safety at risk. Several residents spoke to the police increasing their presence on the street during rush hour. They did — but only once. So, I purchased a 5 foot long heavy rubber speed bump on Ebay that I put out on the street for a few hours per day. I was always around to take ownership if it caused a problem with the fire and police departments, which it never did. We noticed a reduction in speeders and traffic in general.
Adam, Traffic Council reduced the speed limit from 30 MPH down to 25 MPH on both Fairway Drive and Cross Street in West Newton. I dimly recall that residents wanted the speed limit reduced to 15 MPH on Fairway but that TC landed on 25 MPH.
Eliot Avenue, Randlett Park, Fairway Drive and Kensington/Warwick all have a couple of things in common: they are fairly narrow residential streets where lots of families with kids live, they have a 45 degree angle curve in the middle, and they are popular cut throughs between Watertown Street and Waltham Street where drivers tend to go too fast. The fact that the speed limit on Fairway Drive was reduced leads me to believe there may be at least some hope of getting relief for Kensington/Warwick.
Ted, you just described my street as well as many streets across Newton. “Because kids live there” was never a valid reason for lowering the speed limit, by any city, state or federal standard, unfortunately. I’d be very curious to learn more about this decision and if/how it was accepted by the state.
Something worth noting here. The speed limit on Waltham Street between W. Newton Square and Crafts street varies, but is posted in many places as 25 mph. If the speed limit on the cross streets is 30 mph, then that would, seemingly, encourage traffic to take the faster route.
Clearly this doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s certainly inconsistent.
Ann, do you still have that heavy rubber speed bump? It sounds like you might not need it anymore 🙂
Chuck, I don’t think the speed limits on Waltham Street are the reasons drivers use Eliot, Randlett Park, Fairway and Warwick/Kensington as short cuts to Watertown Street. The main reason is that these are shorter routes than going through West Newton Square to get to Waltham Street. Also, there is no left turn on Waltham Street onto Washington or Watetown Street in the square. And a number of commuters use these streets to avoid the lights at Horace Mann and in West Newton Square, and to avoid traffic at those locations during rush hours. West Newton Square, in particularly, gets pretty backed up during the morning rush hour, and it is easier and faster to use one of these side streets to go around West Newton Square and Horace Mann entirely.
Sorry for the double post, but I missed Adam’s question.
I do not make the rules, but I do want to encourage people to use the process that is provided, which is to petition Traffic Council. I don’t handicap the outcomes but I do talk to members before I docket anything to see whether it is worthwhile pursuing. As for kid safety issues influencing Traffic Council decisions, I can think of at least one recent instance that a school zone was extended on a street near the Peirce School, where the facts that there was a sharp bend in the street, and that children in the neighborhood used that street to get to the playground behind it was one of the reasons cited.
Ted, since everyone wants traffic calming in front of their home and the city is unable to do so, policies were enacted to weed out requests. The same ought to be done for stop signs and speed limits, if it hasn’t been done already. As for School Zones, they are the only “kid” issue actually spelled out in the traffic regulations, and there usually isn’t a whole lot of flexibility for them. It’s got to be adjacent to a school entrance and a pretty short distance. Kids on residential streets don’t factor in to traffic regulations, certainly not for kids playing in the street. Those “children” signs are a false sense of security, but so are speed limit signs, IMHO.
I suspect that most of the speed limit signs < 30 mph are grandfathered in from decades ago, when the state process may not have been as strict. A lot of the signs on those cross streets in West Newton are advisory (yellow) and may not even need to be in the TPR.
Chuck, I’ve got to agree that it’s very unlikely that a posted speed limit is going to change the route people choose to drive. Road design and calming devices certainly would, as well as the actual travel time and crowd-sourcing info. As apps like Waze become more prominent people won’t even be making these decisions. It’s scary to think these apps might direct traffic down local residential streets someday.
Incidentally, look at the second picture in the main post. What do you think slows people down more? The speed limit message on the sign, or the fact that a sign is sticking out into the middle of the street? It’s effectively a temporary curb extension.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if people just drove as if their own kids were playing nearby, or in the manner in which they wanted others to drive down their own street? Too simple and naive, right…? Just a Friday afternoon musing….imagine!
Adam, I am not here to argue with you. I just want people to use the process that is provided. As I said, I always consult the members of the traffic council before I docket something to see whether it is worth pursuing. There may be other traffic calming measures we can explore. Self help may or may not be effective. In fact, the signs I have seen elsewhere that are most effective are the ones that say something like “Drive like your kids live here” in big bold letters, or something to that effect.
We need a complete streets resolution and policy in Newton. Otherwise it’s just a piecemeal approach as exemplified in this thread.
I can go to work via Beacon to Walnut, take a left onto Homer at the library and head down Lowell – and spend 15-20 minutes on the road. My alternate route is to take a series of cut though streets and arrive in 4 minutes. It’s the Waze of the future.
However, citizen signs and activism can be great traffic calming measures. Let’s face it – everyone knows you’re not supposed to drive fast down side streets. A gentle reminder with a lawn sign or the placement of a neon green nerfy thing can make a difference. I drove down Kensington St. a few weeks ago and was impressed with the signs. I checked my speedometer and it made me more cognizant of my driving on other side streets. For the record, the green nerfy things are all over the side streets of southern Maine
For more intransigent speeding problems, parking in front of your home works very well as a traffic calming measure.
Sounds like folks are making the case for speed limits of 15 MPH on side streets. I don’t agree with that; we have employees whose job it is to make those judgments on side roads where extra caution is necessary.
Unless the law is changed, I guess state-wide, we need folks who can make decisions on a case by case basis.