I would recommend the author of the post to take a walk near Ridge and GW schools between 7:15-8am on any week day. An honest observation will lead to the conclusion that the 25 mph speed limit is generally ignored. North Monroe is a speedway.
I support a Village wide 25 mph limit because slower is better in tight quarters. I would like to see greater enforcement of such. Claims that state that more accidents happen at 25 mph are more likely wishful thinking than fact. While I don’t have the stats to say its wrong,t logic tells me that higher speeds are more dangerous in tight quarters. With that said, I feel the author only proves my point (that being slower is better) as there is very little compliance with the 25 mph limit anyway.
Sad fact is many of the ‘speeders’ in the morning are parents taking their kids to school. The peak for speeding is 7:45-7:55. Facing the possibility of being late for GW, they avoid the traffic light by cutting over to N Hillside and then crossing over W Ridgewood to get to S Hillside and the entrance to the West Side Pres. parking lot. They sometimes take the bump on S Hillside so fast I can hear the car scraping on the ground. Every single day this happens and there is never a cop to witness it. Only a matter of time before there is an accident. Drivers need to slow down and walkers need to cross the street with caution and with their cell phones put away.
Speed limit is ignored all over town. Make one day someone will step out from one of the empty police cars and actually write a ticket .
Watch out for road-ragers. One of the elected men on the council got into a heated road rage with a woman who was terrified. And the same guy started screaming at a resident, calling him names.
Sad fact is that the TOWN-WIDE 25 mph speed limit does not reduce accidents or fatalities in Ridgewood… It is just another feel-good useless burden.
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25mph (or less) makes sense in certain areas – Schools, the CBD, etc.
30, 35, 40mph (or more) makes sense in certain areas.
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a one size fits all 25mph spped limit based on the fact that an impact at 25mph is less damaging than an impact at greater speeds is wrong headed and frankly stupid.
Just beaces a THEORETICAL impact will cause less damage at 25mph DOES NOT equate to LESS accidents occurring if the speed limit is higher. In appropriate areas (vehicle volume, pedestrian density, limited entry/egress into the roadway) a higher speed limit is more appropriate and JUST AS SAFE.
By forcing a TOWN-WIDE 25mph you are introducing more risk to pedestrians and more potential accidents, because people will ignore a 25mph speed limit if it is too slow and travel 35 or 40mph (all bets are off, once they decided to break the law) while the SAME drivers will FOLLOW a speed limit of say 30mph if it is appropriate to the stretch of road.
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Also following the 25mph speed limit cause other drivers to be more agressive and reckless, turning off main thoroughfares and cutting through residential side street at greater speeds or passing agressively, not to count road rage.
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TOWN-WIDE 25mph is a failure and it need to be replaced with varied speed-appropriate limits ona road, by road basis.
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This is not a GW thing, or even a Ridgewood thing. It’s not even a whole world thing. The reality is that people will always exceed the speed limit to a certain degree. If the limit is 25, they will generally go 35. Speed limit 55, they will go 65-70. This margin of excess speed is typically a calculation of what people think is still within the limit of being caught by the cops.
Now for the idiot that somehow thinks a 25mph limit is actually causing accidents, what do you think the limit should be? 35mph? Okay, then people will be driving 45mph. Yes, that will surely work out, right?
15-20 mph downtown with good signage and cops writing tickets. How many more people have to be killed before we do this?
Not too long from now we will have hundreds of new residents who will by necessity drive through the central business district every time they leave or return home by car. (No, the apartments will not be filled with seniors downsizing from large homes. They will be gone.) Let’s train them right, right from the start.