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Bel Air commissioners debate formalizing neighborhood traffic program amid calls for clearer process
Summary
Town staff presented a revised Neighborhood Traffic Management Program manual that would change petition thresholds, raise level-1 thresholds and emphasize speed over volume. Commissioners split over keeping the group ad hoc for flexibility or codifying it via ordinance to provide transparency and appeals.
Bel Air town staff on Wednesday previewed a revised Neighborhood Traffic Management Program (NTMP) manual that would alter how the town evaluates neighborhood traffic concerns and who makes certain decisions.
Kevin (staff), who led the presentation, said the draft copies a lot of Harford County's approach but includes local changes: raising the threshold for what constitutes a level‑1 concern to 25–50 points, shifting five points from traffic volume to speed to prioritize treatable speed problems, establishing a 500‑foot buffer around elementary schools and converting a quarter‑mile reference to 1,000 feet to match county definitions. He also proposed that certain outlier events — such as a fatal crash or a cluster of injury crashes — be allowed as an "unanticipated" input that could move a request out of the standard point calculation.
"We thought it would be helpful to include a mechanism for unplanned inputs so we don't paint…
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