KALAMAZOO -- The posted speed limit on South Park Street is 30 mph.
But the limit isn't legal and hasn't been for more than a decade.
The reason: State officials didn't perform a traffic study -- necessary to establish a speed limit -- when they assumed control of the Kalamazoo road in 1998.
That means thousands of people have been ticketed for exceeding 30 mph when, in fact, the speed limit is 55 mph -- the default limit for state roads where there's no legally established speed limit, according to Michigan's Vehicle Code.
View Speeding hot spots in Kalamazoo and Portage in a larger map
South Park, from Parkwood Drive at the top of Westnedge Hill to West Vine Street, ranked No. 1 among Kalamazoo streets for speeding tickets written in the city between April 1, 2008, and March 31, a Kalamazoo Gazette investigation found.
Rounding out the top five speeding hot spots in the city, three of the four may have posted speed limits that are set too low, the Gazette investigation found.
Those stretches of road, ranging from a few blocks to 2.5 miles, are:
• Portage Street, between Bryant Street and Washington Avenue.
• Stadium Drive, between Oliver Street and Drake Road.
• South Burdick Street, between Crescent Drive and Maple Street.
|
|
The tickets written for speeding on those four roads accounted for 46 percent of the nearly 6,000 speeding tickets issued in Kalamazoo during the 12-month period, the Gazette found.
"It's obvious the general population is not adhering to the speed limit and doesn't feel the speed limit is proper," said Spc. Sgt. James Campbell, a Michigan State Police traffic-safety expert who conducts speed studies on state roads in Southwest Michigan.
Campbell said speed limits on roads where there is an inordinate number of speeding tickets are "probably artificially low."
"I hate to call it a speed trap because I don't think it's intentional," he said. "It's usually (kept low) for a false reason like safety."
City officials defend the speed limits, saying they're appropriate because of dense housing, number of cross streets and pedestrian traffic.
"In an urban setting, there are many other factors that come into play" when setting speed limits, said Shahid Abbas, Kalamazoo's traffic engineer.
U.S. 131 at the Parkview Avenue overpass also was among the top five speeding hot spots in the city, but that was because police stepped up enforcement of a 45-mph-construction-zone-speed limit when the overpass was being rebuilt last summer.
Reasonable speeds
The speed limit on South Park technically may be 55 mph, but Campbell said driving that fast would be considered reckless driving because it's not reasonable or safe.
What is reasonable on that stretch of road is 35 mph, said Campbell, who recently completed the first speed study of South Westnedge Avenue and South Park between Kilgore Road and Michigan Avenue. That stretch of state trunkline is called M-331, and a legal speed limit was never set for the entire route.
Police records show 7,147 speeding tickets were issued in Kalamazoo and Portage between April 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009, Below is a breakdown of tickets written during that period. Kalamazoo Portage Sources: Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety, Portage Police Department |
Campbell said he expects the Michigan Department of Transportation to sign off soon on his recommendation that the posted speed limit along that 3.2-mile corridor be raised by 5 mph, to 35 mph.
That's a recommendation the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety opposes.
"Our department believes the current speed limit as set is the appropriate speed," Public Safety Assistant Chief Brian Uridge said.
In the 12-month period examined by the Gazette, Public Safety officers ticketed 1,138 drivers for speeding on South Park Street, or nearly 20 percent of all speeding tickets written in that period.
Uridge said the department decides where to do traffic enforcement based on accident rates and citizen complaints.
Accidents aren't a problem, however, along that stretch of South Park. It didn't rank among the top 10 Kalamazoo streets where crashes occurred since May 2008, according to Public Safety.
KALAMAZOO -- Driving 1 to 10 mph over the posted limit was the most common speeding ticket issued in the cities of Kalamazoo (97 percent) and Portage (86 percent) between April 1, 2008, and March 31, a Kalamazoo Gazette investigation found. |
But don't try to convince Bob Cunningham, who's lived in the 1100 block of South Park for 65 years, that speeding isn't a problem.
"At times along here, it's really bad," Cunningham said.
Cunningham doesn't want to see the speed limit raised in those areas of South Park that are largely residential. But, he said, it's nearly impossible to comply with the 30 mph limit starting at the top of Westnedge Hill.
"Coming down the hill, it's hard to stay on the brake," he said.
Kalamazoo attorney Shaun Willis agreed.
"Clearly, they're using it as a moneymaker," Willis said of the high number of tickets written by police on South Park.
But drivers who've been ticketed there shouldn't pin their hopes on appealing the citation and having the points removed from their driving record, Willis and other attorneys said.
"To have such a low speed coming down a hill, it's got to be wrong," Kalamazoo attorney Gary Tibble said. "But I don't think a judge would automatically throw it out. It probably wouldn't invalidate the ticket."
Stadium speed study
State Police this year are planning to review the speed limit on Stadium between Michigan and U.S. 131, a state trunkline called Business Loop 131.
It will be the first such review in 20 years, Campbell said, because state budget cuts mean fewer troopers are available to conduct speed studies.
MDOT sets the speed limits for South Park and Stadium because both are state roads; the city determines speed limits for its roads, such as Portage and Burdick, because they are city streets.
Kalamazoo police ticketed more than 660 drivers for exceeding the 40 mph posted speed limit on Stadium, between Oliver Street and Drake Road, in the 12-month period examined by the Gazette.
That made it the No. 4 most-ticketed spot in the city for speeding tickets during that period, accounting for 11 percent of the total number of speeding tickets issued.
But even if Campbell conducts a new study, there's no guarantee the speed limit will change.
In 1989, despite a state police traffic study that said Stadium's 50 mph speed limit should continue, city and state officials successfully lobbied MDOT to lower it to 40 mph, Campbell said.
"That's the kind of wayward thinking that people have," Campbell said. "You may not like a 50 (mph speed limit) because you think it's too fast, but it's not."
KALAMAZOO -- Speed limits on state roads should be reviewed every 10 years, but state officials acknowledge that budget cuts make that impossible. |
Three intersections on Stadium -- at Howard, Drake and Rambling Road -- rank among the 10 most accident-prone intersections in the city since May 2008, according to Public Safety.
City officials are aware of the Stadium traffic study, but they have taken no position because it's the state's responsibility to set the speed limit, said Bruce Merchant, Kalamazoo's public-services director.
"I'm not necessarily for raising speed limits," Merchant said. "(But) we haven't heard any concerns at this point."
Speeders beware
Two other city streets where a high number of speeding tickets were written are Portage and South Burdick. Both have heavy pedestrian traffic and a posted 25 mph speed limit.
More than 700 drivers were cited for speeding on Portage, between Bryant and Washington, during the 12-month period examined by the Gazette, making it the No. 3 spot to catch speeders in the city. More than 200 motorists received tickets on South Burdick, between Crescent and Maple, earning that stretch of road the No. 5 ranking.
Abbas, Kalamazoo's traffic engineer, said the speed limits are low on those stretches of road to protect pedestrians.
"There are lots of kids crossing the streets," he said. "We don't want to put that neighborhood at unnecessary risk."
Particularly on Portage, Abbas said, speeds are aggressively monitored to reduce crashes involving pedestrians. Abbas said the city received an award from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2008 for reducing the number of crashes by 37 percent and accidents involving pedestrians by 72 percent.
But if the number of crashes and speeding tickets is high, then there's a good chance the speed limit is too low, Campbell said.
That, he said, can pose problems on two fronts: Pedestrians have a false sense of security, and motorists drive aggressively -- such as over-accelerating to pass the few motorists who follow the 25 mph speed limit.
KALAMAZOO -- To determine a speed limit on a state road, state police officers go out in ideal weather conditions and, from an unmarked car or inconspicuous location, use radar or laser to collect the speeds of passing vehicles. |
"You have a tendency for people to put themselves out there in harm's way because they think traffic is going slower," he said.
PORTAGE -- Most people might expect the top spot for catching speeders in Portage would be South Westnedge Avenue.
But a Kalamazoo Gazette examination of 12 months of Portage Police Department speeding-ticket records found the area's busiest road didn't even rank among the top five locations for traffic violators.
"They're speeding on Westnedge," Deputy Chief Dan Mills said. "What hampers our efforts there is the volume (of traffic)."
Claiming the No. 1 spot in Portage was U.S. 131 at I-94, where city police ticketed 208 motorists between Sept. 10 and Nov. 13, 2008, during reconstruction of the interchange. Those citations accounted for 17 percent of the 1,220 speeding tickets written in the city between April 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009.
Portage police received a grant from the Michigan Department of Transportation to step up speeding enforcement on U.S. 131 during construction of the new interchange, Mills said.
Other hot spots for catching speeders included Oakland Drive, between Kilgore Road and Milham Avenue, and Lovers Lane, also between Kilgore and Milham. Both stretches of road have posted speed limits of 35 mph.
Accident rates and residents' complaints help determine where Portage police focus their enforcement efforts on speed limits, Mills said.
The number of vehicle accidents in which people were injured and the number of speeding tickets issued by police have both dropped in the city during the past five years, he said. Mills said he isn't sure why the numbers have decreased.
The department has no officers dedicated to traffic enforcement, he said.
Portage traffic engineer Muhammad Arif said the city sets speed limits based on traffic studies that determine the speed that 85 percent of drivers are not exceeding on a road.
"The state police use the same (method)," Arif said.
Contact Gazette Staff Writer Alex Nixon at (269) 388-2783 or anixon@kalamazoogazette.com.