City of Redondo Beach Slows Speeders in Hot Spots with Interactive Signs.
A beautiful coastal city in California addresses speeding hot spots and school safety with driver feedback signs, cloud-based analysis, and recycled rubber cushions.
The Challenge
Nestled along the picturesque Santa Monica Bay within the greater Los Angeles area, Redondo Beach is a beautiful coastal city with serene shores and vibrant communities. However, amidst its scenic allure, the city was grappling with a trio of challenges centered around driving speeds and safety.
- Residential Complaints: Many Redondo Beach residents voiced concerns about speeding cars in their neighborhoods. Locals felt that speeding cars were disrupting the peace of neighborhood streets as well as jeopardizing the safety of pedestrians and cyclists navigating the area. While the city had an existing speed cushion program in place, they wanted additional tools to add to their safety arsenal.
- Speeding Hot Spots: Certain areas of Redondo Beach seemed to be magnets for recurring accidents, leading the city to prioritize these hot spots for intervention to mitigate risks and enhance road safety. They wanted an effective way to slow speeders and prevent crashes in these hot spots.
- School Zone Concerns: Concern about reckless driving and lack of adherence to speed limits in the city’s school zones led parents, educators, and community members to urge the city to prioritize safety in and around Redondo Beach’s schools.
The Solution
Confronted with these multifaceted challenges, the city of Redondo Beach was cognizant that they needed effective solutions to mitigate ongoing safety concerns. Their goal was to enact proactive strategies to safeguard the lives of drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists and enhance safety on local streets. With the goal of transforming neighborhoods, high-risk areas, and school zones into safe routes, they decided to install Traffic Logix cloud-enabled radar signs and recycled rubber speed cushions.
The city began the driver feedback program with a single radar sign they purchased as a trial and installed near a local school. Gratified by the sign’s effectiveness, they purchased another 14 Evolution 18 FM radar signs. They began by installing signs near local schools and then proceeded to place them based on high-risk corridors and in response to resident requests.
In addition to the new speed signs, Redondo Beach decided to replace their current speed cushions with Traffic Logix recycled speed cushions to address resident speeding complaints. They found that the installation was simpler and that the more gradual slope was a better fit for their city. They began by installing one set to replace an older set from a different manufacturer and then installed two additional sets on another street. They ordered additional sets to continue using for their speed cushion program.
Traffic Logix Evolution Speed Signs
The signs purchased by Redondo Beach are unique driver feedback signs that offer the optimum in versatility. The large 18” LED board feature a static “Your Speed” message and unlimited display options. The signs can flash driver speed and/or any messaging or graphics the city chooses. Message options are unlimited and can change based on driver speed or scheduling. Both speed digits and messages fill the entire LED sign screen for maximum impact. The signs can be used with AC, battery, or solar power.
All of the signs are web-enabled for instant access to detailed data and reports via Logix on Cloud. The city can access detailed data on any sign with a user-friendly map interface that allows users to access both general and granular data to track sign performance throughout the city.
Traffic Logix Recycled Rubber Speed Cushions
The rubber speed cushions that Redondo Beach chose are a series of small humps installed across the width of the roads. Placed in a series that compels cars to slow down with one or both wheels on the elevated rubber, the cushions allow emergency vehicles’ wider berth to pass without slowing down. Hailed as the single traffic calming solution that’s most emergency-vehicle friendly, these speed cushions are made of 100% recycled rubber. They are embedded with highly reflective highway tape for enhanced visibility and have been proven effective in slowing cars down on local roads.
The Benefits
The multi-layered approach to safety is working wonders on Redondo Beach’s streets. Accidents have been reduced in speeding hot spots and residents are pleased that their concerns are being addressed. Local school zones are safer and parents can feel more confident that their children can arrive and depart safely each day.
The city keeps abreast of the signs’ effectiveness using the SafePace Cloud, extolling the program’s simplicity and user friendliness.
Ryan Liu, the city’s Traffic Engineer noted that they particularly like the signs’ slim profile and the many options that the feedback signs offer. He also commented on how helpful it is to have all the data in a single cloud service.
While the city hasn’t conducted formal studies on the performance of the speed cushions, Mr. Liu noted that they’ve “only heard…positive feedback.”
In a city with a plethora of traffic concerns, just a few intuitive solutions are transforming the city into a place that walkers, bikers, schoolchildren, and drivers can all navigate safely each day.