For more than a decade, Vern LaPrath has been coming to Bremerton City Council members asking them to consider placing speed bumps along the street where he lives.
It looks like his hard work may soon pay off.
“I just keep beating the drum and hope it pays off,” LaPrath said last week.
LaPrath lives at 902 Hanford Avenue, which is in East Bremerton and just off Wheaton Way. Hanford Avenue is a long straight-away with a hill and a downward incline that evens out a third of the way down the block. At the end of the street there’s a sharp curve to the left.
Vern and his wife have lived on Hanford since 1973 and in those years, they’ve seen just about everything.
“Cars come speeding down this street at least three times a day,” he said. “Sometimes I can’t believe that they can go as fast as they do.”
He estimates he’s seen cars go from one end of the block to the other in five seconds, which means they’re going anywhere from 60 to 70 miles an hour. The posted speed limit is 25 miles an hour.
“Most of the speeders are going between 35 and 50 miles an hour,” he said. “But they’re all well over the 25 mile an hour limit.”
Many of the speeders are young drivers, he said.
Like the young man who he recently saw do an “e-brake.”
“We used to call them donuts in my day,” he said. “He slammed on the breaks did a 360 and fished tailed just missing my neighbors mailbox.”
LaPrath was out in his yard at the time and wrote down his license plate number and called 911.
“It was a little black fastback car, real low to the ground,” he said. “I reported it and the police caught up with him soon after. He admitted what he’d done.”
Because it’s long and straight, the street appeals to those who want to speed, LaPrath said. And it’s a shortcut through the neighborhood, so that drivers don’t have to wait for the light at Sylvan Way.
LaPrath isn’t just the angry complaining neighbor, he said. His concern is for the kids that live along the street and the elderly who walk there for exercise.
“There aren’t any sidewalks,” he said. “Right now we probably have a dozen to 20 kids who stand out by the road and wait for the school bus. I just know something’s going to happen some day.”
When he started his campaign for speed bumps, no one really listened.
In February of 2012, the city placed an electronic speed board trailer on the street to collect speed data. That showed the bulk of drivers were doing the speed limit, so no speed bumps were added.
But he challenged that data.
“If that was the case, I wouldn’t be down at City Hall complaining,” LaPrath said. “When people saw the traffic trailer, they slowed down. It wasn’t really very representative.”
At that time, he gathered information for the city which showed that three speed bumps along Hanford would cost about $1,500.
He recently did the same and found that the three speed bumps he’s suggesting will now cost $4,565.
“It would have been much cheaper back then,” he said.
Throughout his fight, he’s reminded the city that by ordinance, if more than 50 percent of the residents in the area want speed bumps, “the street is eligible for installation of traffic calming devices.”
“My neighbor, Dave Hayford, and I have walked this block and gotten signatures on petitions three times,” he said. “The last time we got 100 percent of the residents to sign that we need the speed bumps.”
His council member Leslie Daugs has been an advocate for the neighborhood, LaPrath said.
“She’s walked this street with me when I collected signatures,” he said. “She even pledged five percent of her salary to help pay them.”
Mayor Patty Lent said there are funds in the 2015 budget for the speed bumps and she’s going to see that they are placed.
“It does include ‘safe routes to schools’ money that can be spent on speed humps and bumps,” she said. “Since the downturn in the economy in 2008, this is the first time that we’ve actually had dollars available for these safety features.”
LaPrath said he’ll be watching and waiting for the speed bumps to be added.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
