Traffic changes to Lincolnshire Neighborhood

(ABC 6 News) – Residents in one northwest Rochester neighborhood are dealing with some pretty serious traffic and safety issues on their streets. Now, they’re working with the city to change that.

Sheri Hayden and her family is one of many concerned about the traffic in the Lincolnshire Neighborhood.

“Oh, yeah. Like the cars are wizzing by,” said Hayden. “And we’re on a curve here too. So, you can’t really see the traffic when it’s coming.”

Because of their concern the Lincolnshire was selected to be a part of a neighborhood traffic management program.

“And we do that by conducting a traffic survey in the neighborhood to see what is going on,” said Assistant Traffic Engineer for the city Michael Oladele.

Oladele says the program has been successful in other areas of town. The city conducts a survey and holds meetings with residents to find the best solution for the area.

“Before we can do anything like that, we usually do something we called a pilot program. We can’t just say ok because they said this is problem then we have to do this,” said Oladele.

For the next six months or so, temporary curb extensions and medians will stay in the neighborhood.

“We want to narrow the road a little bit to make people coming down to kind of slow down because if you are driving a see something on road. Definitely you are going to slow down,” said Oladele.

Just a few days in, the Haydens have already noticed a difference.

“I mean people do slow down right there: it is nice causes when we back out it will be slower because we have a blind turnout,” said Hayden’s granddaughter, Grace Berrone.

But they do still have concerns. “Cars coming are almost hitting the curb. Trying to stay away from that thing in the middle. So, which it makes more dangerous for kids and dogs,” said Hayden.

Oladele says that’s why this is temporary fix, that and a hypothetically hefty price tag.

“When we are doing a permanent one a lot this will be factored like room for a big school bus or city bus or anything big passing through that route,” said Oladele.

Michael and his team will return in the spring to conduct another survey. They will talk with residents to the success of the medians before considering to move forward with permanent solutions.

According to Oladele, the city is considering installing similar medians near Century High School.