High Point residents petition for traffic calming on speeding streets

Residents on several High Point streets have turned mounting frustration with speeding into a petition for traffic calming devices, focusing on Wise Avenue, East Russel Avenue and Green Street. The push came from day-to-day fears, not a policy fight: neighbors said drivers were moving too fast, blowing through stop signs and making it dangerous for children, walkers and people backing out of driveways.

Denasia McLean said she would protest if needed, underscoring how strongly some residents feel the problem has grown. Trevor Hines described the driving as reckless and dangerous, saying motorists had ignored stop signs and created hazards for people pulling out of their homes. The concerns were not framed as isolated complaints. Residents said talk about crashes and near misses had spread from one house to the next as more people noticed the same patterns on the same streets.

Mayor Cyril Jefferson said petitions are the right first step because the city needs input from the people who live on the street, own property there and experience the problem firsthand before deciding whether to move toward a traffic study and possible mitigation. His comments placed the neighborhood effort inside the city’s usual process rather than a quick fix, but also signaled that organized resident pressure can move the issue forward.

High Point already has a Traffic Calming Policy, adopted by the City Council on Dec. 19, 2016 and effective Jan. 1, 2017, for city-maintained residential streets. The policy’s goal is to improve safety for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists through speed moderation, enforcement, public outreach, traffic engineering strategies and physical measures. It also names the Transportation Department as the primary recipient of neighborhood traffic complaints and gives the Transportation Director, with City Manager concurrence, authority to install, remove or modify traffic-control and traffic-calming measures.

The city’s Transportation Engineering & Design division responds to public complaints and gathers traffic information, while the Planning Division handles neighborhood traffic calming and coordinates short- and long-range transportation studies. Those roles matter in High Point, where current transportation planning emphasizes access, connectivity, safety and equity.

The city’s pedestrian plan helps explain why the petition resonated. It says the biggest barriers to walking include lack of sidewalks, unsafe street crossings, heavy and fast motor vehicle traffic, lack of pedestrian signals and crosswalks, and motorists failing to yield. In that context, the complaints on Wise Avenue, East Russel Avenue and Green Street fit into a wider city challenge: making neighborhood streets feel safe enough for families, pedestrians and cyclists while High Point continues to grow.