Southside Neighborhood Association president Camllia Foust and neighbors discuss ideas for slower traffic

Southside residents Kamaria Faison (standing) and Stein Wexler (seated facing the camera) presented ideas for traffic calming at the February 21 neighborhood meeting

On the evening of February 21, residents of the Southside neighborhood gathered at the community center on the corner of Enterprise and South Streets to discuss strategies to slow traffic at that intersection and throughout the neighborhood. Rachel Wexler share the products of her research into the patterns of reported gunshots in the neighborhood, as well as traffic calming interventions. [Residents of the Southside neighborhood have long argued that there is a connection between the gun violence at that central intersection, and its location at the top of a hill with wide streets that make it easy to drive fast and see who’s coming for a long distance.] You can access the Our Streets Southside Workbook here.

Southside resident Kamaria Faison facilitated discussion among the attending residents to document which traffic calming interventions they wanted to see on their streets. City of Durham Transportation staff and their consultants were in attendance and listening to the residents’ ideas. The City’s consultants will be analyzing traffic calming strategies to slow traffic on Enterprise Street. Since all the streets in the neighborhood will be repaved this summer, the City Transportation staff committed to evaluating traffic calming strategies that the neighborhood brings forward for other streets in the neighborhood.