Boston is installing hundreds of speed bumps to calm traffic in neighborhoods

BOSTON – The city of Boston is embarking on a three-year plan to equip residential side streets with speed bumps intended to calm traffic. The goal is 500 bumps per year, and by the end of the project at least half of the city’s streets will have them.

Neighborhood by neighborhood, cluster by cluster, the five-centimeter-high, 3-meter-long asphalt bumps are a response, the city says, to complaints about speeding.

Residents notice a difference

Some residents, like Jeff Power in Roslindale, say they’ve seen the difference. “Nobody stops at the stop sign and pretends it’s a drag race, so I think it’s a big improvement,” Powers said.

But some drivers, like Aaron Lester, say they have safety concerns, seeing the need to slow drivers down but also thinking the safety wave could be too big. “They can definitely be an annoyance when you’re trying to get from point A to point B,” Lester said.

Most residential streets are eligible

Most residential side streets in the city are eligible, as long as they are not major arterial roads or MBTA bus routes, or are particularly hilly or winding.

Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge says the project is also intended to prevent motorists from simply driving through other streets. “Instead of a single street pushing traffic onto someone else, we’re creating a series of streets in a neighborhood so that anyone traveling through the neighborhood in a residential area will encounter speed bumps,” said Franklin-Hodge.

Combat navigation apps

The city is also trying to crack down on navigation apps that encourage time-saving side streets, said Brendan Kearney, co-executive director of WalkMassachusetts. “The speed bumps are trying to respond to technology that tells people different ways to get around,” Kearney says.

With the new bumps on her Jamaica Plain street, Meredith Levy hopes they will promote safety outside her neighborhood. “For me, it’s a reminder to just relax a little bit and take it easy,” she said.

Like them or not, drivers should prepare for bumpier roads ahead. “What we’re trying to do is calm traffic in our neighborhoods so people can feel comfortable and safe,” Franklin-Hodge said.