DATE: Sunday, April 13, 1997                TAG: 9704110239

SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS     PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER

                                            LENGTH:  219 lines

ON THE ROAD AGAIN THE POLICE REVIVE THEIR TRAFFIC UNIT, BUT TACKLE THE JOB IN A ``NEAT'' NEW WAY.

AFTER BEING PARKED for about 17 years, the city's traffic unit is on the roadagain, with a new generation of officers who go about the job a little differently.

The Strategic Traffic Unit, which has been in operation for about four months, is charged with keeping the city's roadways safe, focusing on problem-solving and a strong link to citizens and their input.

It's the city's first unit devoted to traffic problems since the early 1980s, when the department, faced with dwindling manpower, folded traffic duties into the work of uniform patrol officers.

Consequently, traffic problems often took a back seat to higher priority calls.

Another problem with that approach, said Lt. Karl S. Morrisette, the new unit's supervisor, was that there was no central unit to coordinate and be accountable for traffic and safety problems.

Looking at a traffic-related problem could mean talking to officers on nine different shifts, Morrisette said.

The Strategic Traffic Unit has been part of Police Chief Dennis Mook's plan for about a year now, Morrisette said.

``A lot of it was a matter of getting the manpower right,'' he said. ``We couldn't drain the uniform patrol.''

Now, with the police force up to about 250 officers, the department has launched a traffic unit that uses the same tenets of community policing that have proven successful in the city's neighborhoods.

Its four officers are split up into geographic territories and linked to the community police office officers in those areas.

``It's not a simple radar unit,'' said Col. John Tucker, assistant police chief. ``It all ties into the NEAT (Neighborhood Enhancement and Action Teams) philosophy of solving problems out there.''

Tucker remembers that when he first joined the police department, there was a ``huge'' traffic unit. But the thrust then, he said, was simply enforcement.

``You just keep writing tickets, and that isn't really what we're about - not any longer,'' he said. ``Where that may raise revenues, it also irritates people, and it doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't do any good to write somebody a ticket once the accident has happened.''

This unit is charged with identifying road safety problems around the city before the accident occurs.

That is accomplished largely by staying tuned into what citizens tell the officers.

Morrisette has a computerized list of citizen complaints that the unit has either resolved or is working on.

The problems range from speeding on the West Norfolk bridge and the Martin Luther King Freeway at the Midtown tunnel to motorists ignoring a no-turn sign on Hodges Ferry Road.

Morrisette said enforcement is ``pretty much a last-ditch effort.''

``First, we make sure signs are posted properly, and speed limits, we feel, are appropriate,'' Morrisette said. ``If everything is in check, and there is no other way to solve the problem, then we go to enforcement.''

But the overall goal, he said, ``is to get people to voluntarily comply with the traffic laws - to educate them.''

Like the time the unit received complaints about a motorist who routinely would pull out of an Airline Boulevard business lot, then fly down a left-turn lane to cut off cars in the center lane at the stop light.

Officers found out who the driver was, then went to him and discussed with him the consequences he would face if given a reckless driving ticket. They also educated him on the safety issue involved, Morrisette said.

``Education is a big part of problem-solving in traffic enforcement - to go out and tell people this is what the law is and explain to them. A lot of people really just don't know,'' he said.

Sometimes the officers reach a bigger audience.

Like some of those folks bogged down in the tunnel-bound traffic on Effingham Street.

After receiving complaints that motorists waiting in that traffic were blocking the intersection of County and Effingham, and other intersections, officers went and watched what was happening.

They determined the problem was occurring during the shift change of the Naval Hospital.

They went to the city's traffic engineering department to request signs, which will be posted soon at the problem intersections.

Officers also contacted hospital officials and asked them to put out word to staff members that the intersections should not be blocked and that police officers would be watching the area.

``So far, we have noticed a marked improvement - not that all the violators were from the Naval Hospital, by any means,'' he said.

Recently, the unit turned its attention to truck drivers who stray off their routes and into the residential streets of the historic Port Norfolk neighborhood.

``We have identified certain companies that are doing it on a regular basis,'' Morrisette said.

Morrisette said the officers have talked twice to representatives of one company.

``Several of them are still doing it, so that will leave us no choice,'' Morrisette said. ``We've done what we felt was the problem-solving.''

Morrisette said this will be an ongoing project. So far, 48 tickets have been written in the neighborhood. The number includes truck violations and other traffic problems like speeding. In other duties, the unit will be in charge of sobriety checkpoints and will have officers assigned every weekend to focus on drunken drivers.

The officers also will be responsible for investigating all serious accidents.

Besides their goal of reducing injuries and economic losses from crashes, the traffic unit also is being used to deter crime.

The officers will concentrate a good bit of their traffic enforcement in neighborhoods that have been victimized by drug dealing and other crimes. Recently, the Midtown area was concerned about a series of robberies.

``We put the traffic guys in the neighborhood and streets where the robberies were happening, in hopes of catching the guy in the getaway car,'' Morrisette said.

One of the unit's officers did end up arresting the suspect, who was fleeing the area on foot.

Morrisette said the unit will be using some of the techniques that have been successful for the North Carolina highway patrol on drug and gun interdiction checkpoints.

During one stop, an officer in the unit smelled marijuana in a car. After the driver consented to a search, about 20 ounces of the drug was recovered, along with $650 in cash.

So far, Morrisette said, the unit's officers have arrested 13 suspects on felony charges and nine on misdemeanors, such as drinking in public. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos including color cover by IAN MARTIN

Portsmouth patrol officer Jud Robinson calls in a background check

on a motorist he pulled over on High Street.

Officer Jud Robinson of the Strategic Traffic Unit gives a speeding

ticket to a motorist on High Street, an activity the unit seeks to

reduce by educating drivers about the laws.

Lt. Karl S. Morrisette

Supervisor of the new traffic unit

Graphics

THE TRAFFIC UNIT The four officers of the Strategic Traffic Unit

and the areas to which they are assigned:

Officer Nathan Clark - Downtown, Prentis Park, Cradock and

Fairwood Homes.

Officer Timm Faesi - Park View, West Park View, Shea Terrace,

Port Norfolk, Westhaven, Glensheallah and Midtown.

Officer Jud Robinson - Cavalier Manor, Victory Manor, Hodges

Ferry, Park Manor and Simonsdale.

Officer Gary Millen - Churchland.

To leave a message for one of these officers, call 393-5427 and

press 8 for the Strategic Traffic Unit. Officers in that unit also

can be reached by calling 393-5450.

PROBLEM AREAS/COMPLAINTS

These are some of the roadways that citizens have steered the

Strategic Traffic Unit to and the complaints that led to their

involvement:

Downtown:

400 to 600 blocks of London Boulevard, speeding.

300 block of Effingham Street, speeding.

Effingham and County streets, tunnel traffic blocking the

intersection.

Prentis Park/Brighton:

Effingham Street, between Lincoln Street and Portsmouth

Boulevard, speeding.

Des Moines Avenue and Palmer Street, drivers stopping to talk to

pedestrians, speeding and running stop signs.

Des Moines Avenue and Jefferson Street, running stop sign.

Lansing Avenue, parking violations.

Charleston Avenue, parking violations.

Portsmouth Boulevard:

Near intersections of Woodstock and Ivy streets, speeding.

3000 block, speeding and passing school buses.

5600 block, speeding in school zone.

At Elmhurst Lane, speeding, running stop sign, blocking entrance

to shopping center and bank.

From Alexanders Corner to the Hodges Ferry Bridge, speeding and

other violations.

Hodges Manor and vicinity: 1300 block of Hodges Ferry Road,

ignoring no left-turn sign.

Hodges Ferry Road and Snead Fairway, running stop sign.

100 block of Yorkshire Road, speeding.

200 block of Charlotte Drive, speeding.

Bob White Street and Robin Road, running stop sign.

Mayflower Road, speeding and running stop sign.

Elmhurst Lane and Clifford Street, running stop light.

Elmhurst Lane, speeding.

First block of Chippewa Trail, speeding and ignoring no-through

sign.

Cavalier Manor area:

Crystal Lake Drive, speeding.

1100 and 1200 blocks of Tazewell Street, speeding.

900 block of Roosevelt Boulevard, speeding in school zone.

1200 block of Darren Drive, speeding in school zone.

400 block of Stratford St., speeding.

Victory Boulevard area:

York Drive, speeding.

Kent Drive, speeding.

2800 and 2900 block of Victory Boulevard, speeding.

Midtown:

2800 block of Turnpike Road, speeding in school zones.

Caroline Avenue, speeding and need for more stop signs.

Westhaven area, speeding and need for more stop signs.

3700 block of Griffin St., passing school bus.

Port Norfolk area:

Martin Luther King Highway, speeding.

100 to 600 blocks of Mount Vernon Avenue, speeding and trucks

driving on roads where prohibited.

Hartford Street, turning onto Mount Vernon Avenue, parked cars

blocking view of oncoming traffic.

West Norfolk Bridge, speeding.

400 block of Chautauqua Ave., truck violations.

Churchland:

4000 to 4200 block of Rivershore Road, speeding in school zone.

Larkspur Road, speeding.

Sterling Point Drive, speeding.

4100 block of Weyanoke Drive, speeding and running stop signs.

4400 block of Faigle Road, speeding.

4800 block of Milan Drive, speeding.

Churchland Bridge, speeding.

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