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Residents urge high-visibility crosswalks and traffic-calming after local crashes; city staff says it is coordinating with NCDOT
Summary
Public speakers pressed the City of Fayetteville to add high-visibility crosswalks, flashing signage and traffic-calming measures in busy neighborhoods; staff said the city is coordinating with NCDOT to schedule pavement-marking and other improvements.
Residents and neighborhood advocates told the Fayetteville City Council on Oct. 13 that pedestrian safety and street design are creating hazards in Haymount, Terry Sanford and other neighborhoods, and urged the city to accelerate crosswalk improvements and traffic-calming projects.
At the public forum, Catherine Goldblatt said parts of Haymount and the Terry Sanford neighborhoods are "made markedly unsafe by the lack of high visibility crosswalks at the very busy intersections," naming intersections including East/West Dobbin & Morganton and East/West Dobbin & Fort Bragg Road and saying an open letter now has support from more than 75 local businesses and organizations. "We are imploring the city council to expeditiously install new crosswalks where there are none, repaint the ones that already exist, and direct high visibility lighted flashing signage so that the community can be safer," Goldblatt said.
Ben Holtquist, who told the council he signed up to speak about density incentives but instead addressed traffic issues after a recent deadly crash on Rosehill Road, urged the city to adopt physical traffic-calming measures that "work because of physics," including roundabouts, narrowing streets, trees and medians. "Roundabouts slow people down," he said. "They may increase fender benders initially, but it is better to put cars in body shops than to put people in body bags."
City staff told council they are evaluating the requests and coordinating with the North Carolina Department of Transportation for state-owned streets. Transportation staff said some of the streets mentioned are NCDOT-controlled and that the city is "courting" DOT to place the work on the correct project schedule; for city-owned streets staff said pavement marking updates and repainting are being scheduled.
Council members asked staff to include pedestrian improvements in the city's transportation planning and to provide clearer timelines. The city manager's office and transportation staff directed residents to the city scorecard and indicated future quarterly reports would include more detail about how staff engages on these projects.
No formal vote was taken on pedestrian improvements at the meeting; staff said they will follow up with residents and aim to place work on upcoming schedules.
