AAA: Rumble Strips Generally Not Recommended For Residential Areas

At the Oct. 18 village board meeting, trustees are expected to authorize public works director Robert Mangan to request that the county install rumble strips on Rockaway Avenue near the high school in an effort to better control speed and ease resident concern.

Mangan will also likely be authorized to request that the county perform a study in order to reconfigure the Merillon Avenue/Rockaway Avenue intersection and place a traffic light in the area to permit pedestrian crossing on Rockaway.

Both matters were deferred at the Oct. 4 meeting to allow the village to get the professional opinion of a AAA engineer and enable Mangan to contact the county respectively.

Patch spoke with Christopher McBride, a community transportation specialist with AAA New York, who confirmed that police commissioner Kenneth Jackson requested information about the "effectiveness and problems associated with the use of rumble strips."

"We generally don’t recommend them in residential areas for speed control because they are quite noisy, can wear down fairly quickly (depending on the material used) and are not generally used that often on lower speed roads," McBride said.

The strips are generally used in construction areas on expressways and at intersections in rural areas where you have an unexpected Stop sign or traffic signal, according to McBride, who adds that they also make sense on a roadway with a high speed limit "where you have an abrupt change to a lower speed limit."

"Even in these situations they are used very sparingly," he said. "They are best utilized along the edges of roadway or embedded in lane markings to give drowsy drivers a warning that they are drifting out of their lane or off the roadway. The New York State Thruway has these type of rumble strips installed along nearly its entire length."

AAA doesn't do site-specific engineering recommendations since no one on staff is a professional engineer, McBride said, further noting however that AAA suggested the village look into markings on the roadway itself that deter speed and possibly install flashing beacons.

"The problem is that it is a county road and the county really needs to do a professional evaluation because it may take more than simple measures to really address the speeding concerns here," he said. "The road likely needs a 'road diet' where it can be restriped to appear more narrow. However the county would really have to look at this further before such a scheme is considered."

The village's Traffic Commission agreed to install flashing warning signs on the north and south sides of Rockaway. Although Rockaway is a county-owned road, commissioner Jackson said advisory signs such as ones with flashing yellow lights do not need approval like regulatory signs do.

Trustee Nick Episcopia, who sits on the Traffic Commission, recently traveled to Ronkonkoma with commissioner Jackson to see the effectiveness of rumble strips on a similar road approaching a school. He believes they'd be an effective tool in slowing down traffic. "I don't think it's a bad idea," he said at the Oct. 4 meeting.

Garden City High School principal Nanine McLaughlin told Patch she was pleased to know the issue was "under consideration" and hopes "a remedy is presented/implemented soon" as she is very concerned about the safety of my students.

Thursday's village board meeting kicks off at 8 p.m. in the village hall boardroom. Click here to view the meeting agenda. Residents are encouraged to attend.