DUBLIN, Ga. — You're used to seeing "speed zones" as you ride around, but the City of Dublin came up with "Project Slow Zone" to address cars moving too fast through neighborhood streets.
Renia Cook lives on Stonewall Street. It's one of the eight streets the city is tackling first for "Project Slow Zone."
"One of my favorite parts of living in this community is every evening, us neighbors are outside working on our yards, growing our flower beds, our kids are playing with each other -- it is a neighborhood," Cook said.
Cook has noticed a lot of cars end up using her street as a detour.
Many of the streets don't have adequately marked speed limits, so Matthew Bradshaw, the city’s engineer, says the assumed speed is 35 mph, "Which is sort of on the high end of what it really should be. We're really looking to keep cars under 25 in our neighborhood areas," Bradshaw said.
"Living in this area, I literally last week had two cars line up and drag-race down our street," Cook said.
According to Dublin Mayor Joshua Kight, the city plans to tackle eight neighborhood streets for the first round of Project Slow Zone. That includes new signs, crosswalks, and speed cushions.
"In neighborhoods, to slow down the traffic, you need to plant trees. You need to have parking spaces that bump out into the streets. You need to have landscaping that goes into the streets. You can do things with striping that will visually narrow the streets, that will slow cars down," Kight said.
Kight noticed in the last 20 years, neighborhood streets have gotten more traffic with cars traveling much faster.
"Neighborhood streets are intended to be family streets. There's going to be a little bit of slowing down and discomfort, maybe, for the drivers because we are going to prioritize the bicycles and the pedestrians within the neighborhood streets," he said.
And that's just fine with people like Cook.
While Phase 1 involves eight neighborhoods, the mayor plans to expand the program.