Residents of the Swanson Park subdivision in Cherry Valley insist change needs to come to their neighborhood in order to keep children living in the area safe.
But the type of change is an topic of debate.
Jeff Fustin, of Abington Drive, asked Cherry Valley trustees during Monday’s Public Works Committee meeting to bring speed bumps to the subdivision to slow speeding traffic.
He insisted if something drastic wasn’t done, speeders who commonly zip through the area, will end up killing a playing child.
Approximately 15 people from the subdivision attended this week’s meeting, some of them coming with their small children who live there, too.
Others disagreed with Fustin’s request. Several in the audience argued that it was the parents’ fault that children were running into the street and they were the ones who should be tasked with the problem. After all, one resident pointed out, a child can be hit by a car that is going the speed limit. One audience member suggest instead of spending the money on speed bumps, the village put it toward playground equipment at a nearby park.
“Yes, maybe these children’s parents need to be responsible, but that’s not the point,” one audience member proclaimed. “The point is somebody is going to get killed.”
Trustees agreed to further investigate the situation, but didn’t come to a consensus about what they wanted to do.
Trustee David Schroeder said he’d like to see the village install more stop signs in the area before putting in speed bumps.
“(Speed bumps) stop the smart people,” Schroeder said. “But there are some people who use them as a launching pad.”
How did I live to be 60 years old? I and at least a dozen or so of my neighbor kids actually regularly played in the streets in our blue collar neighborhood as children in the late 50′s, early 60′s. Even after dark! The cars were bigger, faster and significant under equipped compared to today’s vehicles. Amazing!!! Of course like all neighborhoods we had a few slower kids but we watched out for them. Eventually you learned to get out of the way for cars or you got hit; a fact of life. I have lived in Swanson Park since mid 1996 without concern for speeding vehicles. Maybe we should put barricades at the entrance to the subdivision where everyone will leave their vehicle then walk to their homes? We have become such a namby-pamby nation. Every street has an occasional speeder; catching them is part of the job of the police force.