On Oct. 11, 2011, the City of Milwaukie began deploying a second traffic display sign in the city's neighborhoods – a tool that among other valuable functions has proven to reduce speeding wherever it’s located.
The electronic signs display the speeds of oncoming traffic, and blinks a strobe light if the motorist is traveling over a programmed limit. The signs can also take traffic counts and measure traffic flow, and the display can be turned off to measure existing speed conditions.
In areas where speeding is an issue, the data collected when the display is turned off, and then turned on, clearly illustrates the display signs immediately reduce speeding.
“We know that the signs do make a difference,” Captain Steve Bartol said.
The signs were paid for through the $10 traffic assessment that’s tacked on to guilty adjudicated traffic citations.
“The assessment goes into a fund that is used to make investments back into traffic safety projects,” Bartol said. “A portion of the fund has been used to pay for these signs.”
Bartol explains that the sign display program is a City-wide effort. The Police move the signs, change out the batteries and work with the neighborhood representatives of the Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) to identify and prioritize locations where speeding is believed to be a problem. The Engineering Department evaluates the locations to make sure the proposed pole locations are safe from a traffic visibility standpoint and will not interfere with other underground utilities, and the Streets Department install the poles and outfit them with the brackets that hold the signs.
The signs can be remotely programmed in a number of ways – display speeds or not, which when turned off, helps gauge whether or not speeding is in fact a problem at a particular location, set speed thresholds that when crossed a text and email are immediately sent to alert designated Police Officers, and settings can be adjusted based on the time of day, which is useful when the signs are posted in school zones.
Residents are encouraged to contact their Neighborhood Association Chair to suggest locations where the sings can be posted. (Contact information listed on the back of the City’s monthly newsletter, The Milwaukie Pilot, and on the City’s website at: http://tinyurl.com/4xxas54.) Bartol explains PSAC prioritizes locations and the signs rotate through the designated Neighborhood locations every two weeks.
Each sign costs about $4,500, and there’s a two-year subscription fee of $1,700 to the online software that provides detailed report generation and the remote programming capabilities. Every month Bartol sends report information to PSAC members.
