The Campaign to slow down Washington Ave.
I live on a side street off from Washington Avenue in Portland, Maine. If you don’t frequent that part of the world, then you’ve missed a grassroots campaign of sorts. The neighborhood residents seem to have gotten tired of your fast driving, and have taken matters into their own hands. Perhaps inspired by the recent proliferation of campaign signs, folks have started making their own signs imploring drivers to slow down.
History
All indications are that the city is well aware of the traffic and has made efforts to correct the problem on their own. There’s a spot near my home where a police officer is stationed at least once each week trying to catch speeders. Last year, they created lots at the intersections on Washington Avenue, and posted signage (I love that word… “signage”) reminding people to slow down as “respect our neighborhood.” Apparently this hasn’t done the trick.
I decided it’d be fun to document the handiwork of my fellow North Deeringites.
Homemade Signage
I apologize for the goofy layout here. Couldn’t make WordPress do my bidding.
I like this one because it uses several pieces of cardboard. The other side of the tree has a similar multi-piece design. Bonus points for correctly spelling neighborhood, with clever emphasis on "neighbor"!
Driving slow is gangsta, yo. A+ for originality. This one is also nice because it's on wood, and the bright letters are easy to read on the dark background.
I like this one because it's unusually shaped, and the red background gets your attention.
This is the reverse side of the previous sign.
This sign pleads with the animal lover in all (some) of us.
This one is straight-to-the-point. It appears to be a retro-fitted Bill Beardsley campaign sign.
Simple, clean design here. I'm afraid the magic marker that they used to create the sign is beginning to fade.
This person used multiple signs to spread out his message. Unfortunately I couldn't capture it very well with my phone's camera.
Professionally Created Signs
Very recently, a new type of sign has started to appear on Washington Avenue. It looks like a professionally designed sign. I don’t know if it was created just for this purpose, or if these are things you can find down at Home Depot. Either way, I’m not a fan of them. For one thing, it takes the human element out of the campaign to make us slow down. It looks like a campaign sign or a sign for a landscaping company.
It takes a lot of effort to dig up materials in the garage some night after work, design a sign with whatever sharpies you have available, staple it to a stake and hammer it into the ground. These professional signs don’t have the same soul. I suspect our brains will attenuate them the same way that it deals with campaign signs.
Do They Work?
I was really hoping to run into one of the homeowners on the street to ask them about the signs. I’m curious if it’s an orchestrated thing, or if one person started with one sign and it mushroomed. I’d like to know who is behind the professionally printed signs – is somebody paying for them? Who? And do they perceive that the traffic is actually going more slowly? I suspect that it is – I know I pay more attention to my speed on Washington Ave than I used to.
I also noticed a couple of houses for sale nearby. I couldn’t help wondering if the neighbors obvious traffic complaints hurt their ability to sell their homes.
June 21st, 2010 at 11:26 am
Curious – is there a neighborhood association? We formed one in my part of town (I was involved in the beginning stages, but much less so now) and part of our mision statement was to slow traffic in the area.
Through the group federal CDBG money was secured and we will be getting new lane markings, crosswalks, traffic islands, greenscaping, signs, etc. Definitely worth looking into / applying for if there is a group in your area.
June 21st, 2010 at 11:29 am
I don’t know – Washington Ave doesn’t seem like one of those “association” type neighborhoods. I usually connote pristine, gated, country-club McMansion communities with associations, but who knows? That *would* explain it.
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:27 am
HA! My neighborhood is St. John St. – the opposite of a pristine community. But, its one of those ‘squeaky wheel gets the oil’ things – there is zero percent chance St. John St would be getting federal money to put in new landscaping and the like if a group of people hadn’t lobbied for it (in an organized fashion).
There is a list of all Portland group here, though not sure how up to date it is, I’m still listed as an officer of my group, and its been a over a year since that was true: http://www.livinginportland.org/
(Also interesting, two years ago St. John St was technically classified by the city as part of the West End neighborhood, but obviously its not really the same. A group from a graduate school at USM organized neighborhood meetings to get the area united and talking about our issues – with end goal of leaving us with a fully formed / identified neighborhood. There was a formal process to becoming a recognized neighborhood in the city – it was really fun/interesting to be a part of that process).