Howard County transportation officials are all ears.
Residents and neighborhoods beginning this week can go online to report dangerously busy county roads and request traffic calming measures that prevent speeding. Howard County Executive Calvin Ball released a new policy this week that overhauls the way the jurisdiction collects such applications — and the way officials decide which county-owned and maintained roads will eventually get speed bumps, roundabouts or rumble strips.
Howard County last updated its traffic calming policy in 1998, Ball said. For years, the jurisdiction only considered vehicle speed and volume when determining whether a location was eligible for calming measures. Complaints were reported via local representatives and in letters from homeowner associations. Residents complained that a mandatory community vote to approve traffic calming measures made it more difficult for requests to reach the finish line.
“Many of our communities have wanted to have better interaction and better opportunity,” to seek the county’s intervention, Ball said. He hopes the overhaul will be “transformational” for neighborhoods.
The county executive’s new policy still requires community meetings and input — but not a vote. It takes more factors into consideration, including crash history and proximity to community destinations such as schools, parks, libraries, community centers and bus stops. It also expands the variety of measures Howard County will take to control speeds to include raised intersections, raised crosswalks, roadway striping and vertical deflection tools like flex posts.
Officials said the traffic calming updates are a natural next step for the transportation department after it launched its Complete Streets program, the county’s version of a modern movement to make roadways safer for pedestrians, cyclists and other non-motor-vehicle users of the pavement.
County officials representing public works, transportation, police, fire and rescue services as well as the public school system had a hand in developing the county’s new traffic calming policy.
Once the county receives applications for traffic calming, public works officials collect data and scores each request on a 40-point scale, kicking off an eight-step approval process. Over the last year, the Department of Public Works received 88 community traffic calming requests.
Ball included an additional $500,000 in the county’s budget for the fiscal year ending in 2025 to implement the new traffic calming policy. Howard’s Department of Public Works will begin evaluating requests for neighborhood traffic calming throughout the fiscal year.
Baltimore Banner reporter Daniel Zawodny contributed to this story.
