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Last month, a busy JP road got 13 new speed bumps. They were just torn out.
The city plans to replace the 13 removed speed bumps with four speed bumps as soon as weather permits.
A stretch of Allandale Street, less than a mile long, in Jamaica Plain had 13 speed bumps installed in early January that have since been removed due to complaints from residents about the number and height of the bumps.
The bumps, which ran from Faulkner Hospital to Allandale Farm, were put in as part of the City of Boston’s Safety Surge initiative, which included a citywide street review to determine “where speed humps could be appropriate” and a year-by-year roadmap of when each street will receive these “safety interventions.”
But the bumps installed on Allandale Street apparently had other effects, and residents began voicing concerns.
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“What I was hearing from residents was that the bumps were way too high — people were worried about their cars’ suspensions,” said State Representative Bill MacGregor, 10th Suffolk. “And a couple said that not every bump was marked well, and obviously 13 is a lot.”
He and District 6 Boston City Councilor Ben Weber took residents’ concerns to the City of Boston’s streets team, who removed all 13 Saturday.
A city spokesperson said the feedback led the City to conduct an engineering review, which determined the bumps “were not working as intended.”
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“It can be dangerous, if there’s an emergency and someone needs to get to a hospital, for instance, to have that many in such a short stretch,” MacGregor said.
The engineering review found that traffic was slowing down more than the desired 20 miles per hour because of the existing bumps. When the weather improves, the City will install four new speed bumps that will be spaced further apart.
“I think two are going to be near Faulkner Hospital and Springhouse, the senior living community, and two near Allandale Farm,” MacGregor said.
All told, the speed bumps were in place for less than a month.
“I’m very happy that Boston listened to the neighborhood, reviewed the issue, and quickly addressed it,” MacGregor said. “I really commend them.”
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