Worcester committee hears residents on 28 District 2 speed‑hump petitions; one petition withdrawn, petitions filed for later review

The City Council standing committee on traffic and parking on Oct. 22 heard public testimony on 28 petitions to install speed humps across District 2, as residents and city staff debated the program’s reach, costs and safety tradeoffs. The committee approved procedural actions including withdrawing one petition for Sherbrooke Avenue as already completed and filing the batch of petitions for later review.

The meeting, convened by Chairperson Councillor Collorio, focused on petitions submitted over the last year under the city’s speed‑hump petition process for District 2. “This is the speed humps that were suggested through the, you know, all you guys sent in these agenda items over the last probably like 9 months for District 2,” Collorio said at the start of the meeting.

The core technical presentation came from Steve Raleigh, Commissioner of Transportation and Mobility, who described the city’s multi‑year pilot and roll‑out. “This is the fifth year now that we have had a speed hump installation program in the city of Worcester. It started out as a pilot program with 20 temporary speed humps,” Raleigh said. He told the committee the program installed 82 speed humps this year — a mix of temporary and permanent — and that “in total this summer, we have, over 100 speed humps that are out on the streets, at this time, considering both the temporary and the permanent speed humps.”

Why it matters: the petitions prompted sharply divided neighborhood testimony about when humps…