Racine officials outline engineering, enforcement and budget options to address speeding

The Racine Common Council’s Committee of the Whole heard a presentation Feb. 4 from the city’s Department of Public Works and the Racine Police Department on tools, data and budget options to reduce speeding and reckless driving across the city.

The presentation and ensuing discussion focused on three categories of traffic safety — education, enforcement and engineering — and on near-term steps alderpersons can take to get traffic studies or temporary countermeasures deployed in their districts. City staff emphasized that many traffic-control decisions must follow federal and state guidance and, where applicable, codified city ordinances.

Commissioner Rooney, who led the Department of Public Works presentation, told alders the department is operating at full staffing in engineering and can perform traffic studies, parking studies and signal timing analysis. He said staff follow national and state guidance including the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and Wisconsin motor vehicle law. “We’re professional engineers. We need to follow this document,” Rooney said, referring to the MUTCD.

Rooney described the department’s data-collection tools and the engineering basis for setting speed limits. The department uses pneumatic tube counters to gather weeklong speed and volume counts (seasonally limited by winter…