Sandy Springs council signals review of neighborhood traffic‑calming policy after extended debate

Sandy Springs councilmembers and staff spent more than an hour Wednesday scrutinizing the city’s neighborhood traffic‑calming policy and asking staff to return with recommended revisions and public input steps.

The discussion, led by transportation staffer Kristen Westcott, reviewed the policy’s history, the city’s eligibility thresholds and cost‑share rules, and a five‑year tally of applications. Westcott said the city completed 22 formal traffic‑calming studies in the last five years, of which eight qualified under existing thresholds and five proceeded to install treatments. She also said 80 separate neighborhood requests had been pared down through an initial intake process to a much smaller set of studies.

Council members pressed staff on when traffic calming should be mandatory versus discretionary and on whether the current petition threshold and neighborhood cost share impose barriers. “If staff thinks something needs to be done, we just need to go do it,” Councilmember John Paulson said, arguing projects that are “warranted by data and science” should not be blocked by petition results.

Staff outlined policy mechanics: eligibility depends on speed and volume measures (including an 85th‑percentile threshold), crash history, roadway geometry and whether streets meet the city’s “minor residential” classification. Westcott said certain geometric conditions—steep hills or sharp curves—make physical calming treatments unsafe or infeasible and so are excluded from the program. She said the policy originally specified the city would maintain physical treatments but that sentence was omitted in a later revision; nevertheless, staff said the city has been bearing maintenance costs in practice and has added a maintenance line in the operations budget.

Speakers described a variety of potential policy changes discussed at the meeting: lowering the neighborhood approval threshold from 75% to 65%; adjusting the neighborhood contribution share (staff cited examples of partial neighborhood funding for radar feedback signs); narrowing the “area of impact” used for petitions so those most affected carry the decision; and excluding very low‑volume streets or cul‑de‑sacs where treatments would have little benefit. Westcott gave examples of neighborhoods that received funding from other sources or chose not to proceed after studying options.

Public comment from resident Bill Griffith urged a safety‑first approach and argued the city should not base public‑safety decisions on majority votes. Griffith referenced Roberts Drive as an example where he said about two single‑vehicle crashes occur annually on a roughly one‑mile stretch and said Sandy Springs’ budget for traffic calming (he cited a $50,000 figure from the presentation) was inadequate.

No ordinance or budget appropriation was adopted at the meeting. Councilmembers said they had found consensus to ask staff for a broader policy review; Mayor Rusty Paul and others suggested that staff present recommended changes in a future public forum or hearing and provide clearer cost breakdowns and options for elected officials to choose. Staff said it would return with recommended revisions, budget implications, and a public‑engagement plan.

The council also asked that future analyses include crash‑type detail so that locations with crash patterns indicating speed‑related loss of control can be prioritized. Westcott and councilmembers repeatedly emphasized that data collection for studies should avoid atypical periods (for example holidays or summer months) to prevent skewed speed counts.

Council members also noted operational concerns: the need to coordinate reviews with the fire department and other first responders so treatments do not slow emergency response; the administrative burden of petition processing and payment handling; and whether some capital‑style neighborhood assessment mechanism (similar to sidewalk or paving assessments) would be a fairer, more efficient funding model.

Next steps: staff will draft a policy review that clarifies maintenance responsibility, provides options on petition thresholds and cost shares, identifies candidate streets for near‑term action, and proposes a public hearing schedule to gather resident input.