Speeding down secondary roadways continues to be a problem in Chatham.
Residents on Woods Street are tired of all the speeding and burnouts taking place on their street.
Mary Galloway said it is at times like a racetrack out there.
“They’ve been flying up and down here. We have a lot of children on the street,’” she said.
Galloway isn’t alone in her thoughts.
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Longtime Woods Street resident Art Barnes described the speeding problem as “brutal.
“It usually goes on all day. It’s a thoroughfare,” he said of the street.
Galloway and Barnes said there are times when drivers will slow down, just to screech off again.
“Kids have been doing burnouts down the street,” Barnes said.
“I’ll be on the porch. They’ll just gun it and smile at me,” Galloway said.
Another Woods Street resident, Jason Pelkey, said it’s not just young drivers in little souped-up cars either.
“Sometimes a motorcycle goes by so fast you’re not sure what it was,” he said.
The residents complained to police. When The Chatham Voice visited the street to talk to residents, a police cruiser pulled up and the officer asked the citizens how traffic flow was that evening. During our time on site, flow was conservative.
The police had beefed up their presence on the street and it appeared to have an impact.
The residents are hopeful this will help keep the speeds down, but they would like to see a four-way stop go in at Montgomery Drive, a small side street that links Woods Street to Sandys Street to the east. They say a lot of children cross Woods Street there to go to the various schools in the area.
“A lot of people will turn down this street to avoid the light on Sandys Street,” Galloway said of the traffic signal at Sandys and Fielder Avenue, only a couple of car lengths south of where Montgomery links up with Sandys. “There is no school crossing down here (on Woods Street).
“Someone’s going to get hurt. It will be a sad day if a child gets killed on this street.”
This isn't the only street , Vanier Dr is posted at 40 kmh and people fly down here doing 70 and there is no sidewalks down here , And the stop sign at Donalda and Vanier is ignored most people don't even brake, they just fly right thru it .
A little girl almost died on woods street years ago due to this very same problem, she still suffers to this day with lack of mobility motor skills and delays, we r extremely lucky she survived and is a fighter! But no other child deserves to go thru the same ordeal. SLOW DOWN PEOPLE!!!