Fossil Park Neighborhood

Ramblings

Dec 01, 2004

In my opinion, the area bounded by 4th and 9th Streets North encompassing 71st, 72nd and 73rd Ave. afford some of the best standards of living in the St. Petersburg area. I.E., we have easy egress and ingress, via 9th and 4th Street, close to Library, Fire Dept., shopping centers and, to top it all off, a beautiful, safe and well maintained park.
The only fly in the ointment is the congested traffic caused by the narrow avenues and the vehicle jolting speed bumps.
Regarding the avenues: It would be a simple and relatively inexpensive operation to widen the aforementioned avenues by adding a four foot sidewalk to the rolled curb at each side of the street in order to increase the width from 24 feet to 32 feet. This would result in the creation of four 8 foot traffic lanes thus allowing vehicle parking on both sides of the street and still leave over 16 feet clear for two way traffic. Note: vehicles are usually 7 feet or less in width so, as a practical matter, there should be about 18 feet clear for two way traffic. Furthermore, the proposed sidewalk will provide a place to set garbage cans without doing damage to the lawn and also provide a barrier to help prevent lawn refuse and dirt from falling into the gutter and eventually clogging drains. The city should be interested in this aspect as they are handing out tickets for this very happening. To get an idea of what the final result would look like, take a look on 71st street between the library and the rest home. This street is already 32?’ wide.
Regarding the speed bumps: Personally, I have no objection to speed bumps providing they are installed according to the city engineering specifications. Said specifications are as follows: The original roadbed shall be raised no more than 3 ?½?”. The approaches to said raised portion shall be a plane 4 feet long starting at 0?” height and terminating at 3 ?½?” (the height of the raised portion).
As it stands now, hitting the speed bumps at the posted speed limit of 15 MPH will jar the fillings out of your teeth. The approaches come closer to being curbs instead of rising in the manner as laid out in city engineering specs. There is no way of telling what the thickness of the raised portion of the speed bump is. Folks, this is not Rocket Science! Lets get it right!
Jim Lundgren