A group of parents brought their concerns with speeding on East Street to the Oneonta Common Council’s Quality of Life and Infrastructure Committee on Monday, Sept. 30, hoping to convince the council to improve road safety near the Oneonta middle and high school campus.
They suggested lowering the speed limit, expanding the school zone and installing a crosswalk.
Sarah Cooper, a mother of a middle schooler who lives near the schools, said that every morning, she stands with five children and holds out her hand out to stop traffic.
“I have to do this every morning to take my own child and these other children across the street to the school because of the speed of people driving by,” she said.
The city has been conducting a speed study since 2019 to determine where potential speed changes may need to take place.
The location near the high school was one of them.
“We looked into this a couple of years ago,” City Administrator Greg Mattice said. “The site is problematic.”
Mattice said that in the city-wide speed study, most of the results are well below 30 mph, but upper East Street is an exception.
“We would need to change the physical design of the street,” Mattice said. “That would be expensive.”
Oneonta residents Kimberly and Mike Fielding expressed concerns about speeding in the area.
“It’s just dangerous,” Kimberly Fielding said, “and you know when the college students are back and getting out of class, because you can hear them speeding by.
“It is just frightening by that corner.”
The Fieldings also expressed concerns that it’s not just car drivers that are speeding in the area, but the city buses and school buses.
Scott Harrington, R-Sixth Ward said that the city buses are equipped with GPS to track speed.
“As for the school buses, we don’t have jurisdiction over them,” he said.
Cecilia Walsh-Russo, unaffiliated-Second Ward, said that she has a meeting scheduled this week with SUNY Oneonta officials who are looking into the number of cars and parking on campus, and would bring up this topic of speeding along East Street.
“The rule used to be that you could not have a car as a freshman at SUNY Oneonta, but they changed the rules,” Walsh-Russo said.
“I’m not sure when, but now if you have 30 credits, you can have a car. This could be a factor also why there are more cars at the college.”
Mattice said that from the speed study the city has been doing, there are some solutions near the school area to consider, such as a wide speed bump that would not be a hinderance to snowplows, but would draw attention and possibly slow people down.
“Other things to consider,” Mattice said, “we can bring this to the attention of the chief of police, and we can review the signage and possible expansion of the school zone 25 mph and 15 mph distances.”