Street calming revived, projects back in pipeline

The City of Cincinnati's street calming program has been revived, with a couple of minor tweaks.

The Neighborhood Street Calming Program (NCSP) was established in 1995 and typically involves the installation of speed humps on cut-through residential streets.

The NCSP uses a ranking process to ensure that each request has community support and will not adversely impact other activities.

Essentially, streets are ranked based on volume of traffic, percentage of vehicles exceeding 29 mph, accident history, emergency vehicle use, and proximity to pedestrian-generating facilities such as schools and parks.

The physical configuration of the street is also taken into consideration.

Due to a tightening of City finances in 2003, street calming funds and staff were cut from the budget and the program was suspended.

With the program reinstated in the 2008 budget, the City's Department of Transportation and Engineering has streamlined the process for approving street calming projects by:

* Allowing requests by phone or by e-mail, not just in writing
* Eliminating the requirement of a public meeting before the post card survey
* Simplifying the numerical calculations used to rank the proposals

With City Council adoption, the 41 streets that were under consideration when the program was ended in 2003 will continue in the prioritization process, while the more than 100 residents who have inquired about the program since then will be contacted by the City to initiate their proposals.

In related news, City Council is considering adding Grafton Avenue in Bond Hill to the program.

Fifty-four of the street's residents signed a request for street calming, citing a child struck by a speeding car, hit-and-run incidents with parked cars, and a resident receiving a ticket after he was hit by a speeding car while backing out of his driveway.