A Bump in the Road for Speed Humps in Montgomery County

IF PEOPLE did not speed, speed humps would be unnecessary. Communities would be quiet, bicycling children would be safe and emergency vehicles could reach their destinations without impediment. But people do speed, and thus we need speed humps. Montgomery County's current speed hump policy dates to 1998, when a reaction against excessively permissive guidelines prompted criteria that have successfully limited the number of new speed humps to 388 (out of a proposed 653) in the past 11 years. By comparison, the District has added 534 since 2007. Legislation under consideration by the County Council would tweak the 1998 rules. It would relax a traffic volume requirement so that smaller streets with particularly egregious speeding could meet speed hump criteria, and it would redefine when side-street residents get to weigh in on hump installation.

This second proposal raises a tricky policy question. Under the current system, once the criteria are met, the county's decision on where to put its speed humps is made by the residents of a single street. They tend to give more weight to the advantages (reduced traffic, fewer speeding vehicles) than to the disadvantages (inconvenience for those who live elsewhere, obstacles to emergency vehicles). Broadening the community that gets to weigh in on such questions tends to reduce the share of people who favor speed humps.

Given the proliferation of traffic-calming devices throughout the metropolitan area -- which has brought the average number of speed humps to one every 1.5 miles in the

District and one every 2.2 miles in Montgomery County -- such a broadening may be called for. How do we weigh the safety of the few against the convenience of the many? Should the desire of residents for quieter, safer streets trump the desire of the larger community for smoother roads? Perhaps it is time for the public hearing that County Council member Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda) has advocated.