Some of those present at Wednesday, March 3’s Warsaw Traffic Safety Commission meeting at Warsaw City Hall included, from left, Lance Grubbs, Jack Wilhite and Cindy Dobbins. InkFreeNews photo by Leah Sander.

By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — The Warsaw Traffic Safety Commission opted to take no action on two issues at its meeting on Wednesday, March 3.

One was regarding speeding concerns at Parent Drive. Residents in that area had come to the commission’s meeting in October to discuss the topic.

Warsaw City Planner Justin Taylor brought some possible solutions before the commission. Those included more permanent ones like putting in traffic tables, which are like speed bumps but with more surface area, or temporary ones like installing cones.

“But again, the bigger thing that came to light after studying this area is that Petro Drive to the north is still not open, so we do believe that once Petro Drive is fully open, it will alleviate some of the concerns,” said Taylor. “It will … direct the flow of traffic through that area.”

He added that part of the roadway could be narrowed in the area to help with truck traffic there.

“But our recommendation from the planning department to the commission would be to not take any permanent action on this corridor until Petro Drive is open,” said Taylor. “If the residents still have … concerns about traffic through that corridor, then we could direct them to work with maybe the Ride-Walk Committee to see if there’s any temporary solution that we could explore to help alleviate those speeds and lower those speeds through there if that’s still a concern.”

Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer asked Warsaw Police Capt. Joel Beam if traffic trends had been documented.

“We did actually a couple of times,” said Beam. “It shows that there really isn’t a speeding issue. I think a lot of it is just the perception of speed, especially if you’re standing there and cars are going by you.”

“Our data shows that that’s not really happening to the extent of which we were originally told,” said Beam of the speeding.

The commission ultimately voted to take no action on the issue for the time being.

Angled parking

The commission also took no action on changing angled street parking along Market and Washington streets, which is along the south side of the old Owen’s grocery.

Beam brought the issue before the commission at its February meeting. At least one person voiced concern to him about vehicles sticking out into the street from where they were parked.

Beam noted that reviewing crashes in the area there’s only been one in about a decade related to a vehicle backing out of parking.

Commission members also discussed whether a change should be made now after it was announced earlier this week that the former Owen’s property could eventually be redeveloped for housing and other uses.

They decided to take no action.

The commission’s next meeting is 1 p.m. Wednesday, April 7, at Warsaw City Hall.