Traffic calming in Lower Burns Park neighborhood proposed

Posted on Wed, Nov 4, 2009 : 10:53 a.m.

Neighbors in the Lower Burns Park area are organizing to put in traffic calming along Golden, East Park, White, Henry and Granger Streets, based on concerns that detours from East Stadium bridge construction will divert traffic into their neighborhood.

Golden Avenue is likely to be an unofficial detour route for traffic rerouted by planned construction on the East Stadium bridge over State Street scheduled for Nov. 15-17. The official signed detour will take traffic all the way down Stadium to Packard, and locals who can figure out the one way streets in that neighborhood can and do regularly drive through rather than take the long way around. Those who don't figure out the one way streets sometimes go the wrong way.

Traffic calming - the introduction of speed bumps, bump-outs, or other traffic measures to reduce traffic speed and flow - is managed in the City of Ann Arbor by the Project Management Unit in the Public Services division. The Traffic Calming page maintained by the city provides links to a traffic calming guidebook, program progress by street, a PDF with a petition to start, qualifications for streets to be eligible for the program and tools for traffic calming.

Patrick Cawley is the project manager for the City of Ann Arbor's traffic calming projects; he was not available for comment at the time this story was written. Look for updates as this story is edited on Wednesday.