Bellona Traffic Calming Update

There was a Bellona Avenue traffic calming meeting on the evening of July 23rd at the Govans Library with Randall Scott of the Department of Transportation and several dozen members of the local community. All of the adjacent community associations were notified by email and homes immediately along Bellona were flyered. [Note: This meeting was focused on the traffic calming device at Taplow and Bellona which consisted of a center island and four immediately adjacent bump outs.]
At that meeting, the several dozen members of community provided the City with some clear direction on how traffic calming on this stretch of Bellona should be handled going forward:

First, the existing island and bump outs were to be removed. This was the unanimous request of the residents in attendance, knowing that the earliest speed cameras could be installed would be October 1st. Those in attendance made it clear that they wanted the island and bump-outs removed ASAP and the folks at Transportation made it happen.

Second, Transportation will do a speed study to see what the prevailing speed now is, without any physical traffic calming in place.

Third, we may re-convene in September to review other physical calming alternatives, but if Bellona’s traffic volume disqualifies the possibilities discussed that night – such as speed humps or speed tables – we will probably just end up installing speed cameras in October. [Note: My understanding is that a few years back, Transportation rejected speed bumps for Bellona due to the volume of traffic and came up with the island/bump-out combination as a compromise that appears to have made more people unhappy than happy…]

Post-installation of the cameras, Transportation will check back in six to nine months with another speed study to see if the cameras have had enough of an effect. If not, then we’ll have to figure out how to change the rules to allow some other physical traffic calming.

Finally, while there were many people in attendance that evening who also strongly advocated for the removal of the bump outs that function as gateways to that stretch of Bellona - the two at Lortz Lane on the south and the two at Brackenridge on the north - there was nowhere near the clear consensus there had been for the removal of the island. Please contact my office at bill.henry@baltimorecity.gov to let me know what you think about these bump outs.