Norfolk officials hosted a meeting with some residents of 29th Bay St and several Bay Breeze Point members including several Board members.
At that meeting, City officials discussed speeding on both 29th Bay and 30th Bay and presented data and recommendations to address the safety concern.
Subject: Use of 30th Bay St between Pleasant Ave and Pretty Lake Ave
Background: Please go to the January 27, 2011 Safety Alert that was posted on this website and review it. As a follow-on to previous actions, some East Beach residents have taken the next step and presented a petition signed by 29th Bay St residents requesting City of Norfolk help in calming “unsafe” vehicle operations on both 29th Bay St and 30th Bay St. The City gathered some data and developed recommendations based on that data, then presented the results to those East Beach residents. In addition, some of our residents and BOD members were invited to attend this meeting.
Discussion: The City’s presentation highlighted prior calming actions which included adding two stop signs on 29th Bay between Pleasant Ave and Pretty Lake Ave. Due to perceived continued speeding on both 29th Bay and 30th Bay (this speeding cannot be validated by Police reporting given no speeding traffic violations have been issued for operations on either 29th Bay or 30th Bay over the last few years) , the City installed traffic equipment to check both speed and traffic count. This traffic check produced the following results: 29th Bay averaged 246 vehicles per day with a median speed of 15MPH and a 85% speed of 22MPH (FYI: For 29th Bay, median speed means 50% of the speeds were at or below 15MPH and 50% were above 15MPH, while 85% speed means 85% of vehicle speeds were at or below 22MPH and 15% were above 22MPH.) 30th Bay, on the other hand had an average of 346 vehicles per day with a median speed of 22MPH and a 85% speed of 29MPH. The City used these results to generate their recommendations, which included: no action for 29th Bay except to leave the extra stop signs in place; while for 30th Bay, they recommended adding four (4) permanent speed humps between Pleasant Ave and Pretty Lake Ave.
Bottom Line: East Beach does have traffic safety concerns primarily with 30th Bay in that the Street is only 14 feet wide and it does not meet the width requirement for two-way traffic because it was constructed as an “Alley” not a named two-way street. The addition of speed bumps may not resolve the issue, 30th Bay may need to be converted to a one-way street and/or the speed limit lower to 15MPH.
Please continue to watch your speed both in East Beach and our community