Burd Street residents met with Pennington Borough Council members on October 6, 2021 to discuss the extreme difficulty they say they face on their street everyday.
Residents agreed: the street is tight, only 20-25 feet wide. Parking is allowed on only one side of the street. Residents on the side of the street where parking is allowed struggle to pull out of their own driveways safely. They inch out and can barely see past the cars parked on either side of their driveway aprons. Even their children struggle to see past the cars, making looking both ways before they cross the street nearly impossible.
The opposite side of the street faces a completely different issue. Those residents barely have enough room to pull out of their driveways without hitting the car parked across the street. Making the turn onto the roadway is extremely tight.
The meeting heard many residents on both sides of the street air their concerns and frustrations with the situation. On top of the issue of a narrow roadway, the struggle to find parking and difficulty moving their vehicles safely down the street, there is an even more pressing issue. Speeding.
On an already narrow street that can be difficult to navigate, the residents report cars cutting through on Burd Street at up to 45 miles an hour in a 25 mile an hour zone.
Janet Madsen, a Burd Street resident stated, “I am really frustrated with the issue on Burd Street. I think as you can tell, there are vastly different opinions depending on which side of the street you live on. One side of the street has an issue, the other side does not. …You can’t see when you are pulling out of your driveway. ….There is no line of sight to the left or to the right. I am a good driver, a careful driver. And my car with the automatic brakes slams on a couple of times a week because you have cars playing Frogger up and down that road. …Somebody is going to get hurt.”
Borough Council member Kit Chandler shared, “Speeding is not just Burd Street but everywhere in town…I have spoken to a number of residents about it. The public safety department is working on it. As [Chief of Police] Doug [Pinelli] is purchasing a handheld radar we are also looking for…on North and South Main Street, speed indicators to make people more aware. We are aware of it, we are taking different strategies for it.”
Mayor Jim Davy noted that “this is a consultative meeting. We wanted to meet with you all. There is no ordinance before the Council. This is not on the Council’s agenda, per se; it is in the consideration of the Public Safety Committee right now.” He stressed that the situation is being evaluated and there is still a lot to do and there will be no big changes overnight.
