ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 1, 1996 TAG: 9610010039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: What's on your mind?
SOURCE: RAY REED
Q: I run or bike on Wiley Drive through Wasena and Smith parks three times a week. I have noticed that a great many motorists who use the parks as cut-throughs from one neighborhood to another travel at an alarmingly high speed. This endangers children getting in and out of cars near the playground equipment and joggers, cyclists and older people taking a brisk walk. Still, I have never seen a patrol car pull over a speeder in the park, nor has the Roanoke Police Department ever placed one of the "Your Speed" signs along Wiley Drive. Why doesn't the police department enforce the speed limit in the parks, and what would it take to shut them down to car traffic altogether?
K.R., Roanoke
A: Police don't enforce the speed limit on Wiley Drive?
That would be news to employees at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital who think of Wiley Drive as "the hot spot" for radar in the hospital's vicinity.
Wiley Drive's 15 mph speed limit reportedly poses a stressful conclusion to hospital workers' occasional lunchtime visits to the Ramada Inn restaurant on Franklin Road.
"We're consistently in there. We consistently write radar tickets on Wiley Drive," said Lt. R.A. Bower of the city police department's traffic bureau.
They don't pick on hospital employees. Cops are democratic about tagging speeders no matter where they're going.
Your observations of the traffic seem to be accurate, though. At least 16 other citizens agree with you and paid a visit to city hall recently to say so. They also made a few suggestions.
One result is that the city traffic engineer is counting traffic to see what measures might be needed to slow the cars.
Joggers, bikers and motorists bring different perspectives to roadway sharing. The risk of traffic tickets never has brought the groups into agreement or submission.
Joggers, for their part, don't always acknowledge motor vehicles' rights on Wiley Drive, police say. They haven't issued any tickets to joggers - yet.
Speed-law enforcement might appease one side and anger another, but a satisfying solution - whatever it may be - obviously lies elsewhere.
The people who came to city hall with this problem had a suggestion: make Wiley Drive a one-way street.
This would give taxpayers access to the park they've paid for and let them use the playground equipment and picnic shelters - but it would be less convenient than two-way access.
On the other hand, Wiley Drive would be more of a parkway and less of a throughway.
As for the idea of closing the street to vehicle traffic: it might be easier to ride a bicycle cross country.
City councils everywhere are reluctant to close taxpayer-financed streets. Salem refuses to turn over a section of High Street to Roanoke College, and Radford won't close a grade crossing for the Norfolk Southern Railway Co.
Roanoke has limited traffic flow on some residential streets, but its last road closing was in the mid-'80s.
Got a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Call us at 981-3118. Or, e-mail RayR@Roanoke.Infi.Net. Maybe we can find the answer.
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