On Dec. 15, a car speeding up South Court Street crashed into a residence at 155 Benefit St. and caused additional damage to another house at 19 South Court St. The accident has led some members of the College Hill Neighborhood Association to lobby for increased traffic control devices - specifically, speed bumps.
The accident, recounted by Ronald Dwight '66, "wouldn't have happened" if there had been speed bumps on the road, he said. Dwight, who is on CHNA's board of directors, lives at 155 Benefit St. and said he and his wife often hear cars speeding on the street at night.
"Introducing speed bumps will make (drivers) use main roads instead of little historic streets," Dwight said.
The safety of pedestrians is an obvious concern, but speeding cars are a particular threat to historic houses on the East Side. Large and fast-moving vehicles create cracks in the plaster on roads, and crashes like the one on Dec. 15 are not infrequent, Dwight said. He said one house on the corner of Jenckes and Benefit streets has been hit by cars three times in the past 10 years.
"It is important to Providence, the state of Rhode Island and Brown to help protect these historic houses," he said.
Dwight said though traffic control is something of a low-profile issue, it needs more attention.
"It's a miracle no one's been killed," he said. He added that speed bumps should be installed soon - before a "seemingly inevitable" tragedy occurs.
Dwight also expressed concerns about drag racing, which he said has occurred recently on Congdon and Prospect streets.
But some say speed bumps are not necessarily the solution.
"Bumps make life really difficult for public safety vehicles," said David Segal, city councilman for Ward 1, which includes Brown's campus and much of the East Side.
Segal mentioned narrowing roads as one viable alternative to speed bumps. Under this approach, curbs would be bumped out to create a parking lane and constrict the overall road size.
Creating the illusion of narrower roads "tends to make (drivers) slow down," Segal said.
But Benefit Street is already "very narrow because of the cars on the East Side," said Rita Williams, city councilwoman for the Ward 2, which includes College Hill.
In general, even simpler remedies like signage have helped in controlling traffic, Segal said. Stop signs on Brook and George streets have been effective in slowing vehicles. Cameras monitoring drivers who run red lights are another possible solution to speeding, Dwight said.
While there is work planned on traffic-calming projects for Ives and Gano streets, which are both located east of campus in Ward 1, Segal said the traffic immediately adjacent to Brown's campus is less of a problem.
Gano Street is a frequent traffic problem because it is an I-195 access road. Current construction and re-routing of this highway within the next five years also threatens to increase the traffic around Wayland Square, according to Segal.
Brown and the city of Providence are drawing up plans to facilitate pedestrian traffic between Pembroke Campus and Lincoln Field along portions of Meeting, Angell and Waterman streets as part of the planned Walk.
"We're working with city planners to see if that might alleviate some of the traffic problems," said Stephen Maiorisi, acting vice president of Facilities Management.
The Walk design will raise the street level so that pedestrians can walk across the street. The raised portion would be wider, but still passable to cars. "It wouldn't be a typical speed bump," said Maiorisi.
Maiorisi agreed that the high volume of both pedestrian and vehicle traffic around campus is a definite "safety issue."
