By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
During the bustle of the holiday season and beyond, motorists may want to slow their hustle as they drive through downtown Bowling Green.
Based on a citizen’s concern about speed violations in the downtown area, Bowling Green Police Division plans to put an extra patrol on the busy Main and Wooster streets.
Rick Busselle voiced his concerns at last week’s City Council meeting about motorists violating speed limits in the downtown area.
Though the posted downtown speed limit on Main Street and Wooster Street is 25 mph, Busselle said he suspected the average speed by motorists in the area is somewhere between 25 and 40 mph.
“It’s dangerous,” he said, especially for bicyclists. “I don’t think it’s safe.”
Busselle suggested that motorists would be more likely to adhere to the speed limit if the Bowling Green Police Division were to issue more tickets to those violating the 25 mph limit. He also asked that the police run radar guns downtown to get a better idea of the speeds that most motorists are traveling.
Busselle also mentioned the possibility of speed cameras being installed downtown to issue tickets.
BGPD Lt. Adam Skaff said speed cameras aren’t on the city’s radar.
“At this time, this is not something the police division is recommending to the city,” Skaff said Monday morning.
Speed cameras have been a source of complaints and legal contests in many communities, like Toledo.
But the police division will run radar in the downtown, Skaff said.
The city does enforce the speed limit near the four corners of Main and Wooster, he said, but it has been a number of years since the police division did any proactive patrolling there.
“For the most part, I think people are doing a good job of following the speed limit. That said, there are always people who violate it,” Skaff said. “As with any area of the city, it depends on the days and times.”
The downtown area sees a typical number of vehicle crashes at the main intersection, but no high injury crashes because of the speed limits, Skaff said. And considering the high pedestrian traffic in the downtown, the city sees remarkably few crashes involving walkers, he added.
The tight lanes downtown probably help keep the speeds low, Skaff said.
“People naturally slow down,” he said. “Sometimes the perception is that in the tight downtown area, people appear to be going faster than they are.”
The series of traffic lights on Main and Wooster can cause motorists to slow down or to accelerate to make a green light.
Navigating the main intersection can be frustrating as motorists attempting left turns at the four corners downtown often pull out into the intersection when they have the green light, so they can turn when an opening in oncoming traffic is available.
Those drivers can legally turn left after the light has turned red, as long as they had advanced past the white stop bar on the roadway while the light was green. That means other motorists must wait for them to clear the intersection before they can proceed.
