Armando Leija Esparza was mowing a customer’s lawn in Winnetka Heights when a mad driver ran him over and killed him on July 19. The death rocked his family and shivered down the spine of many North Oak Cliff residents who were already alarmed to drive down Jefferson Boulevard. Police said the Honda Civic that hit Leija was traveling 76 mph when it hit another vehicle and went off the road.
Neighbors’ concerns about speeding were so acute that they formed a task force in early 2021 to investigate the issue and improve safety on Jefferson’s walk through the Winnetka Heights, LO Daniel and Sunset Hill neighborhoods. The group suggested closing one lane in each direction along Jefferson Boulevard to reduce the section between Hampton Road and Polk Street from six to four lanes, comparable to the business district at the east end of the boulevard.
We’re excited to have Dallas city officials working with residents to explore traffic-calming initiatives. The city will conduct a three-month pilot of the Task Force proposal and temporarily close the lanes along Jefferson Boulevard – what city planners and traffic engineers refer to as the “street diet”. The pilot, also known as a demonstration, is expected to begin the week of August 16.
Dallas residents should also note that the city’s proposed 2022 budget includes $ 500,000 for residential traffic calming initiatives, including street diets, speed bumps, and other structures to protect pedestrians.
Street diets aren’t new to North Oak Cliff. The city tried Hampton Road last year, where the lanes were only closed on weekends. However, this had the unintended result of some of the traffic being driven through the neighborhood streets, said Mayor Pro Tem Chad West, who represents North Oak Cliff.
We support considered efforts to defuse dangerous traffic patterns, especially in residential areas. But because the urban network is so complex, the city has to be particularly hard-working. Traffic calming demonstrations require careful data collection and analysis, and we hope the Street Diet on Jefferson will provide insights that will provide the city with solutions that are suitable for both pedestrians and responsible drivers.
It’s important to understand the fear and frustration that led North Oak Cliff residents to create the volunteer-led Jefferson Boulevard Traffic Task Force. Task Force chairman Russ Aikman recalled an incident last summer when a driver lost control and plowed into a dental clinic near Edgefield Avenue. It was night so the clinic was empty and no one was injured.
Months later, Aikman was walking his dog. As he turned onto Jefferson Boulevard, he saw a lamp post and a traffic sign that had been knocked over near Windomere Avenue.
Then he realized that he had had enough.
“Between me and a few others, we were like, ‘This is just wrong,'” Aikman said.
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Working with city officials, the task force learned that there had been more than 230 accidents on Jefferson Boulevard between Hampton Road and Tyler Streets in about four years, most of them caused by failure to observe traffic lights. The task force also examined city data that showed that at some junctions along this route, one-sixth to one-fifth of traffic going west or east exceeds 40 miles per hour, even though the speed limit is 30 miles per hour.
Dallas police also spoke to the task force, Aikman said. The department has its own transportation department, although, as our colleague Sharon Grigsby pointed out in a recent column, the department’s enforcement arm is pitifully small: four sergeants and 22 officers.
At least two neighborhood associations sent letters to West, the councilor, officially supporting the street diet on Jefferson Boulevard. West told us that if neighbors decide after the demonstration that they want to make the lane reduction permanent, they can apply to the city to change it. This process includes analysis by city workers and requires a public hearing with mandatory notification to all property owners at a certain distance. The decision would ultimately be made by the city council.
West told us the city is moving forward with other traffic-calming initiatives in Oak Cliff. He said at least five pedestrian islands – raised concrete center lanes to protect people crossing wide intersections – are in the works. One was recently installed on Colorado Boulevard and Turner Avenue. Another pending neighborhood permit would be near the James Hogg Elementary.
West is also pushing the concept of roundabouts, which are installed in the middle of neighborhood intersections. Think of them as mini roundabouts, forcing drivers to slow down on roads with little traffic but still having issues with over speeding.
The mayor said he will seek permission from the city council to use District 1 bonds to pay for two roundabout demonstrations, including one near Sunset High School. The location of the second has yet to be determined.
“These will be examples, if the council approves this, of where the rest of the city can come to see if they like them, and we will create a program that neighborhoods can apply to,” West said.
We are excited to see where this experiment leads and hope that successful traffic-taming strategies will spread to other parts of Dallas.
Neighborhood involvement is key to these initiatives, but we wonder how many residents of this city even know that Dallas has a traffic management program designed to work with neighbors on speeding controls and similar issues.
Although the city promotes the traffic management program on its website, it should consider holding educational events to educate local residents. It should specifically target areas where there is no community network or where language barriers could prevent residents from reaching the city.
Dallas does not have unlimited money and resources, so it is important to moderate expectations about options and schedules. Nonetheless, residents should be given a basic understanding of the tools they already have to help them.
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