The town of Vail could remove at least half of the speed bumps from both parking structures following a review of the improvements by a third-party traffic engineer.
The town began installing new speed bumps in its Lionshead and Vail Village parking structures late this summer. Convex Security Mirror
The speed bumps were part of several required safety improvements from a settlement with a local family whose 11-year-old was killed in an accident in the Lionshead structure. The settlement stipulated that speed bumps and several other safety improvement and traffic calming measures be added to Lionshead. The town decided to make similar safety installations in the Vail Village structure.
In total, the Lionshead structure now has 110 bumps and the Vail Village has 108. The speed bumps are installed as sets of two.
According to Kris Widlak, the town’s director of communications, the town has spent around $100,000 on the installation of the speed bumps.
However, while the bumps had the intended effect of slowing down speeds in the structures, Vail community and council members immediately questioned whether the speed bumps were excessive in number.
At the Dec. 5 Town Council meeting, Council member Dave Chapin requested that the town staff look into eliminating some speed bumps.
Rather than come to a number on its own, the town contracted a third-party traffic engineer to come and evaluate the structures.
The town previously had a retired traffic calming expert conduct an informal review in November as the bumps continued to come into question. Widlak said at the time that the evaluation “indicated that the current configuration of bumps in closely spaced pairs is definitely more effective than single bumps and should not be discontinued.”
The town, however, decided to take a more formal step and bring in a contractor to create an official report, Widlak said.
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At its Tuesday, Dec. 19, meeting the Town Council received the initial report from Craig Racey, a senior project engineer from Martin/Martin Engineering.
“I was invited up last Friday (Dec. 15) to have a look at the parking garage with a focus on safety at this point, knowing that they went in and installed quite a few speed bumps here in those two parking garages,” Racey said.
“The town staff, their mission was to enhance safety and there’s really no doubt that the speed bumps do that; they do provide a slower speed in the parking garages, they just do so at the impact of user experience.”
At the meeting, Racey made several recommendations to the council on how to proceed in the short and longer term to ensure the safety of pedestrians and vehicles in both structures.
Racey recommended that “from the get-go” the town eliminate one bump from every pair.
“I think right away, we can think about eliminating those double speed bumps, and really eliminating half the speed bumps, right out of the gate,” he said. “If we can take those out, I think we at least provide a better experience, so everybody is not having to go over two speed bumps each time.”
Additionally, in the near term, Racey recommended reducing, eliminating or shifting bumps that cars would approach from an angle, which creates a “rocking motion in the car.”
“Some of these, especially in the ramps, are along the turning bays — if we move those up into the ramps a little further, at least the car will have a chance to straighten out first before going over the bump and it’s just a better experience when you go over a bump straight ahead than from an angle,” Racey said.
The final near-term recommendation was to remove bumps from locations where they could be a tripping hazard — including moving speed bump sets away from pedestrian crossings and handicapped parking spaces.
In discussing the recommendations, Mayor Pro Tem Barry Davis asked Racey what his recommendation would be to increase safety if he approached the Vail Village garage as a blank slate with no bumps.
Racey acknowledged that he would’ve started with signage, speed tables or rumble strips to slow traffic before turning to speed bumps as a solution. Speed bumps, he acknowledged, serve as an obstruction to a previously clear drive aisle, which is used by both vehicles and pedestrians.
However, Racey still did not recommend wiping all speed bumps from the structures. Not only would removing them from Lionshead violate the settlement in place, but Racey said he would leave them in place at Vail Village at this point as well.
“Certainly the speed bumps help and I think eliminating them completely from Vail Village at this point would probably not be the way I would go right now,” Racey said. “Yes, it might have been the way from the ground-up, but honestly, when we’re talking from the ground-up, there’s other things we can do that we can’t do in these garages at this point, like design different corridors and different paths and we don’t really have the ability to do that right now.”
Plus, Racey recommended the town have a “unified approach” between structures not only to simplify maintenance procedures but also because it “will go a long way to at least letting the town know what works and what doesn’t.”
Racey said that other measures the town could look at down the road would include implementing other traffic calming measures such as speed tables, rumble strips, painting pedestrian crossings, adding additional signage for pedestrian crossings and speed limits, and finally adding more enforcement in the parking structures.
The town will await the finalized report — including a floor plan of each structure with speed bump reductions and locations — from Racey before making any official changes to the structures. In addition, Matt Mire, the town’s attorney, said any changes would run past the attorney who was involved in the settlement to make sure any reduction maintains the spirit of that agreement.
However, once these steps are taken, the Town Council gave town staff a nod of approval to follow through on the recommendations. Town Manager Russ Forrest said that following that, the reduction would be made “as soon as we can get crews out there to execute on it.”
The town does not currently have a plan for what it will do with the bumps once they’re removed from the structures.
“We are waiting to get the full report before we decide when, how many, and which ones should be moved or removed. That will influence what we do with any speed bumps that get removed,” Widlak said.
“Once we receive the full written report with all of the recommendations, we will create a plan to implement both short- and long-term changes when they make sense.”
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