Letter: Slowing traffic easier said than done

To the Editor:

Last week’s story about the neighbors on Paperjack Drive banding together to fight speeders on the street brought back bittersweet memories of the 17 years that we lived on the corner of Paperjack and Bilmar.

In the 1980s, there was a horse ranch on the west end of the street, and few houses on the east end. The speed limit at each end of the road was 35 mph, with 25 mph in the more populated center, so it seemed understandable that a few people would forget to slow down (from 35 mph).

There was a main access road into Southview Addition, and it is wider than the other streets, and always seemed to encourage speeding.

One year, we tried using signs in our yard to remind people of the 25 mph speed limit. The rare speeder who exceeded 55 mph generally did so late at night, a small comfort to the parents of small children who were safely in their beds at that time.

The story made me think of the late Brian Early, who lived at the west end of the street, and how he used to deal with speeders by leaping off the curb, waving his arms, and shouting “Slow down!” (I wrote about his heroics in the News of New Richmond column in 1988.)

Twenty years ago, that actually worked, with the guilty party slinking off at a sedate 20 or so miles per hour, never to speed again (by that end of the street, anyway).

Judging by the response of the red truck mentioned in the story, Early’s kind of policing would likely get a guy run down in these days of hyper-aggressive driving and road rage.

My hat’s off to the Paperjack neighbors for joining forces to try to fix the problem once and for all. If it’s a successful venture, let me know, we’ve got our own brand of speeders and aggressive drivers on County Road H, and we’d love to know how to slow (and quiet) them down!

Mary Hubbell

Star Prairie

Tags: paperjack drive, opinion, slowing, traffic