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Keizer resident urges speed bumps on Shoreline Drive after neighborhood pet struck; committee to gather options
Summary
A Keizer resident described repeated dangerous speeding on Shoreline Drive, including a recent incident in which two vehicles struck a neighbor's cat, and asked the multimodal safety committee to pursue speed bumps; staff and police said past speed displays and studies reduced speeds temporarily but did not meet thresholds to trigger further calming, and the committee agreed to collect neighborhood feedback and refine policy tweaks to send to council.
A Keizer resident told the multimodal safety committee on Feb. 19 that speeding on Shoreline Drive has become dangerous for children, seniors and pets and asked the city to consider physical traffic-calming measures.
"My family and I have lived on Shoreline for eight years," Jennifer Hewitt said during the appearance of interested citizens. She described two vehicles striking a neighbor’s cat, Ollie, and said one driver "ran over Ollie, killing him," arguing that speed bumps near Dearborn and the crosswalk by Rafael would make the neighborhood safer.
Public Works staff and Officer Powell said the city has followed the neighborhood traffic management plan’s multi-step process on Shoreline. That process starts with a speed-trailer deployment, followed by speed and volume studies; if thresholds are met the city may move to engineering measures. Staff told the committee they had previously installed a speed-display sign on Shoreline after committee recommendation; early results showed improvement but the effect diminished over time.
Officer Powell described enforcement and data collection: officers have used speed trailers and made targeted enforcement around school times, but past speed/volume studies on Shoreline did not hit the plan’s numerical markers that would automatically trigger additional physical devices. "Follow the data," he advised, noting enforcement and data-driven countermeasures have produced measurable changes where studies supported them.
Committee members and staff discussed common constraints with speed humps and tables: emergency-vehicle access, residents who oppose neighborhood changes, possible noise from repeated braking and re-acceleration, parking impacts and the 75% petition threshold in the current plan for some petition-based remedies. Several members urged mobilizing the West Keizer neighborhood association and having residents collect signatures or formal feedback to meet the plan’s procedural requirements.
The committee directed staff to add a discussion to the March agenda to compile recommended tweaks to the neighborhood traffic management plan (adopted Feb. 2024), solicit neighborhood-association feedback and prepare a recommended list of changes to send to city council. Chair DeBlasio asked members to bring concrete proposals and promised the committee would discuss a consolidated spreadsheet of suggested crossings and traffic-calming ideas at its April meeting.
Why this matters: residents described near-miss incidents at a time and place (about 8:30 a.m. near the four-way stop at Chemawa/ Shoreline, roughly two and a half blocks from the reported strike) where children walk to nearby Cummings School. The committee framed next steps as a mix of neighborhood engagement, targeted enforcement and data-driven study rather than immediate capital work without meeting plan thresholds.
The committee did not adopt an immediate capital project for Shoreline at the meeting; instead it asked staff and neighborhood associations to collect input and revisit the item at the next meeting.
