City Taking Steps To Calm Traffic On Brookside Neighborhood Streets

The City of Tulsa is making progress on its neighborhood traffic calming program.

Starting next week, crews will start construction on several streets near Brookside - putting in speed humps to crack down on fast drivers.

Homeowners near 41st and Peoria say speed drivers made their neighborhood dangerous, so they spoke to the City, and the City listened.

Ron Petty and his wife put up a sign a few months ago; it says, “Drive Like Your Kids Live Here."

Petty lives on 41st Place and St. Louis and said too many drivers are going way too fast.

"They are not going the 25. Very few go the 25," he said.

Petty said he had to stop walking his dog in his own neighborhood because traffic was so heavy.    And at least a few young families even moved away because it got to be too dangerous.

"There used to be several young families in the neighborhood,” he said. “They would be pushing strollers out here or walking their kids and they'd have to dodge these cars."

The traffic comes from drivers cutting between 41st and 51st who don't want to deal with Brookside traffic on Peoria.

Petty and his neighbors circulated a petition, asking the City to come study their streets.

City engineers determined their neighborhood qualified for its Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program and came up with a solution - several streets between Peoria and Trenton from 41st to 45th will be repaved and patched, and, most importantly, they'll install speed humps to slow drivers down.

Petty hopes it works, because, right now, nothing else is.

"They don't slow down. This is a very long street and so you can get up a pretty good speed," he said.

If you're interested in participating in the Neighborhood Traffic Calming Program, visit www.cityoftulsa.org to request an application or request one by phone at 918-663-9401.

There are many criteria your neighborhood must meet before the City can begin the traffic calming process.