Gillespie residents ask city to curb traffic
Starkville aldermen heard Tuesday from residents of East Gillespie Street, who were concerned about the increased traffic on their quiet street.
Ed Kennard, who spoke for the group of residents, said the addition of medians and other traffic control devices on Highway 12 had caused some motorists to turn to Gillespie Street as an alternative to the main thoroughfare through town. The influx of cars, he said, has also brought noise and speeders and taken away the quiet, historic neighborhood appeal that drew residents to Gillespie in the first place.
“Due to the redesign of traffic recently on highway 12, vehicles are seeking alternate routes to and from the university,” Kennard said. “And this
being, Gillespie Street is the closest parallel through, and most of that traffic is coming our way.”
Kennard said Starkville Police Department had helped the neighborhood several times already, with a portable radar trailer providing a temporary solution. After the radar was removed, the city installed rumble strips, which kept older residents awake as they were repeatedly hit at high speeds.
“People hit that thing as hard as they could, as fast as they could,” he said. “We heard rump-rump-rump all night long. With a resurfacing of Gillespie Street, which we greatly appreciate, those went away and mercifully were not reinstalled.”
Kennard said the residents of East Gillespie Street had reached out to SPD and Alderman Hamp Beatty several times, and their concerns were addressed each time. However, he said, a permanent solution hasn’t yet been found, and the residents once again felt they needed to ask the city for help.
Alderman Ben Carver said the problems on East Gillespie are not unique to that one road, as residents throughout Starkville notice more traffic coming through at higher speeds. In his ward, Carver said he fields frequent calls about that very issue on Greensborough Street.
“I’ve been getting more calls in the last year than I’ve ever had,” he said.
Aldermen echoed Carver’s statement with streets in their own wards where speeding is a problem.
Police Chief Mark Ballard said officers do respond to speeding and noise complaints,
but the effect only lasts as long as an officer can be posted. Enforcement, he said, can only be a temporary fix.
City Engineer Edward Kemp told the board the city’s traffic flow is changing, and finding a solution that works for the individual neighborhoods will not be an easy thing to do.
“There are a lot of places around town that are, the roadway context is changing,” he said. “Figuring out a balance to still maintain the efficiency of your road system but also protecting the neighborhood is a challenge.”
Currently, Kemp said the city is participating in a regional transportation study, which gathers important data on traffic patterns. That data, he said, could be an important resource as the Board of Aldermen look to identify areas to improve and solutions that could be implemented.