NE Bend residents worried about speeding drivers

Many people living on the northeast side of Bend say they are tired of seeing people speed through their neighborhoods.

An area right off of Highway 20 is being used as a cut-through for people to make their way to and from Neff Road.

Drivers will turn off of Highway 20 onto Dalton Street, then make a right turn onto Locksley Drive and a left onto Providence Drive, which cuts through to Neff Road.

And that means during peak traffic times, people are often speeding through the residential area, where the speed limit is 25 mph.

A reported DUII crash and arrest on Dalton Street Monday afternoon put a new spotlight on the safety concerns of residents like Kevin Munro.

Munro said he not only is he worried about dogs and children that are out playing in or near the street. He said people drive through the area so fast that he must now be extremely cautious now when he pulls out of his driveway.

“People are going through here at extremely excessive amounts of speed,” Munro said. “A lot of them making a lot of racket, gunning it with their trucks and what not. It’s very clearly posted by a lot of the neighbors down here to slow down, it doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of an effect.”

Neighbors have posted ‘slow down’ signs along Dalton Road, in hopes that drivers will realize it’s a residential area.

There are other options that could be used as well, to make sure people slow down in residential areas.

The city Streets Department said that in many cases, cars parked on the side of the road encourage drivers to slow down.

Police Lt. Clint Burleigh said putting out ‘slow down’ signs could definitely help to encourage people to slow down in residential areas.

“We want to make sure that we have the safest community we can, and we all need to work together. This is not just the police department making the community safe,” Burleigh said. “This is the community making the community safe. We need to be that extension of the community, to make sure that everybody is following the rules and everybody is following the speed rules, because the worst thing that could happen in any neighborhood is somebody getting hurt.”

Some living in the area said speed bumps might be a good solution.

Those do work, but can cause problems, according to the city, making it hard for street sweepers and snow plows to do their job.

Burleigh said they do have speed monitoring trailers that homeowners associations can utilize by applying for them, if they would like to put them in their neighborhood temporarily.

Munro said he would like to see people be extra-cautious when they are driving through a neighborhood.

“Drive double defensively, be very cautious, especially when you’re approaching any of these intersections,” Munro said. “You can be as cautious as you want, but if you’ve got bad sight lines because of parking or things like that, even if you’re just nosing out, I’ve been almost clipped at least a couple of times.”

City officials said they are aware of people using residential areas as cut-thrus and are looking at adding speed calming devices to the citiy’s transportation plan.