Several dozen Cressona residents filled the Borough Council meeting room to capacity Monday night as they brought continued concerns about speeding traffic to officials.
Residents of River, Front, Pottsville, and Wilder streets all say traffic moves too fast by their homes and they fear for their safety, believing it’s inevitably going to result in someone losing their life.
For months, council members have toyed with the idea of installing temporary speed humps on the roads as a means of addressing, at least for a short while, the speeding. And on Monday, the council did unanimously approve spending up to $5,000 on temporary traffic calming measures, amending a motion from last month’s meeting which specified spending on speed humps.
Mayor Sandi Renninger says she surveyed 30 River St. residents recently and they all favor speed humps on the road. The problem, Public Work supervisor Frank Killian says, is that temporary humps the Borough was considering would need a concrete base in the road to anchor them properly.
Killian says putting in permanent speed humps right now is not an option because the road would have to be properly repaired before that. Two problems are in the way of that happening. First, the Borough doesn’t have enough money in the budget for a full fix of River St. to even consider permanent humps and second, no one responded to requests for bids for this year’s road projects in Cressona.
Another consideration is turning some roads into one-way streets, like River St.
“You need something temporary while we work on something permanent,” councilwoman Jennifer Wannamaker said Monday.
Regarding creating one-way streets, Code Enforcement Officer Mike Pontician suggested, “It’s the fastest solution.” He said it would give the Borough a chance to see if it had any effect on speeding traffic.
Long-term Solutions
To address the speed concerns on a permanent basis, Cressona needs two things, time and money.
Cressona council president Linda Walinsky says that the Borough has consulted with PennDOT’s Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP). LTAP suggests that Cressona conduct full traffic and safety studies on Borough and state roads. A request for the studies has been submitted and it’ll take up to two months for them to be completed.
LTAP financial assistance doesn’t open until July 1, Walinsky says. In the meantime, the Borough plans to create a traffic calming policy, per LTAP’s recommendation.
Walinsky says that armed with an official traffic calming policy and LTAP study, Cressona can then go to PennDOT and seek more financial help in addressing the residents’ concerns on speeding, and that includes on state roads that pass through the borough.
“I’m 100% committed to fixing it,” Walinsky says. “We have lots of idea on how we can calm traffic but we can’t do anything without a study, especially on a state road.”
Council also formed a traffic calming committee comprised of Walinsky, Renninger, and councilwoman Michelle Blankenhorn.
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