OPINION: Speed Bumps Won't Cut Whiting Ave. Traffic

Instant solution: put speed bumps on Whiting Avenue and the speeding cars will stop.

Clean, low cost and directly to the point, speed bumps look workable.

Unless one considers what happens next. It could trip a whole raft of speed bumps, each with its specific condition and the selectmen left to consider each one individually.

For example, Barbara, who on the Patch network, named Washington Street, Sprague Street, East Street and Cedar Street as just a few other roads that could make a bid for speed bumps.

Selectmen would have a hard time which of these streets to approve, not to mention dozens more.

But this is not an idle idea from nowhere; it comes from a sterling source, Dennis Teehan. He asks for speed bumps.

Teehan used to be a selectman, so he knows he is asking the current selectmen to make a tough decision.

He is also a former police chief. He knows all the rules and all the nuances of traffic signals.

So this more than talk, it is a call to the existing selectmen to do something.

Will the proposed bumps do anything to stop the 4,300 cars currently using Whiting Avenue as a shortcut from Hyde Park to the Providence Highway?

No, it won’t.

To make that happen, the town would have to make changes in the way traffic moves.

Specifically it might need to make some streets one way. That would get some of the 4,300 cars out of the equation.

Also, it is time to see if the Dedham Square renovation will cause any new traffic heading along Whiting Avenue. That could make a difficult situation an impossible one.

Actually, Whiting Avenue needs more than just speed bumps. It needs to warn drivers of the dangerous section much earlier than it does now. For many drivers, there is no recognition of a possible crisis until they are at the sign tells them they are supposed to be going 20 an hour when they might be driving 30 or 40 miles per hour.

By then they are concentrating on their own speed, not any pedestrians. That can actually hamper the driver’s attention.

Whatever else is decided, selectmen ought to set up stop warnings long before the hill where the accident is most likely to happen. Tell motorists a half-mile away that there is peril ahead. Tell them again at a quarter-mile. Get them ready. Get them ready long before they will need to react.

This might seem like overkill, but if it does the job of slowing the drivers, it is a winner.

Plain speed bumps do nothing if the rest of Whiting Avenue remains as is.