TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Residents in Tucson’s Garden District are speaking out about persistent speeding along Belvedere Avenue and their mixed feelings on the city’s recent installation of solar-powered speed feedback signs as a solution.
The signs, which cost $6,000 each (for a total of $12,000) and were funded through Ward 6 discretionary funds, were installed in recent weeks in an effort to curb speeding on the straight, residential stretch between Grant Road and Pima Street.
“Belvedere is a speedway,” said Lois Pawlak, president of the Garden District Neighborhood Association. “It’s a straight shot with no stop signs from Grant to Pima Street.”
Pawlak said neighbors asked the city last year to install chicanes or a roundabout to slow traffic.
However, because Belvedere Avenue lies within a designated floodplain, many traditional traffic calming measures are not permitted.
“Flood control came back and said you can’t have anything on Belvedere,” Pawlak said. “And what we were looking for was getting chicanes in two or three places and a roundabout.”
According to Greg Orsini, a traffic engineer with the City of Tucson’s Department of Transportation and Mobility, vertical elements like speed bumps cannot be added to the road due to flood mitigation requirements.
Instead, the city turned to radar-based feedback signs as an alternative.
“Because we couldn’t add any vertical elements to the roadway, these speed feedback signs were kind of deemed as a suitable alternative,” Orsini said. “One kind of simple thing is—a lot of times folks don’t even realize they’re speeding, and so it just really gives the motorist, as they’re approaching, the realization.”
Still, the impact remains uncertain. “Their effectiveness,” Orsini added, “is mixed.”
For some residents, the signs offer a glimmer of hope.
“I’ve gotten used to it,” said Deniese McCarty, who lives in front of one of the signs. “And you know, with all the work they’re going to be doing on Grant, I’m hoping it does keep people going slow.”
City officials have not announced any further changes to traffic control on Belvedere Avenue at this time.
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Eddie Celaya is a multimedia journalist at KGUN 9. Born in Tucson and raised in the Phoenix area, Eddie is a life-long Arizonan and graduate of the University of Arizona who loves the desert and mountains and hates the cold. Previously, Eddie worked in print media at the Arizona Daily Star. Share your story ideas with Eddie at edward.celaya@kgun9.com, or by connecting on Facebook or Instagram.
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