Drivers in the right groove dodge traffic-calming effort

The experiment has begun.

Lawrence drivers on Friday had their first encounters with “speed cushions”- the newest type of traffic-calming devices to hit the city – as a nearly $400,000-project on Harvard Road opened to motorists.

The early returns seem to suggest this: the new obstructions slow down motorists with bad aim.

Speed cushions are slightly different than traditional speed bumps. The cushions have two grooves to allow a vehicle’s wheels to avoid the bump altogether, so that emergency vehicles can go through without slowing down or receiving damage.

But private vehicles are taking advantage, as well.

“I think they have helped a lot to slow people down,” said Tristan Desetti as he stood on the sidewalk along Harvard Road on Tuesday afternoon. “Then you have idiots like that who don’t know how to do it,” Desetti said pointing to a small SUV that pulled to the center of the road and went through the grooves with only a small decrease in speed.

City officials say they’ll be watching to see how the three new speed cushions – located along Harvard Road between Wakarusa Drive and Monterey Way – work.

A car pushes through a recently installed speed cushion on Harvard Road between Wakarusa Drive and Monterey Way Tuesday evening. Some residents along the road are questioning the effectiveness of the cushions, which have grooves that can allow drivers to pass through the hump without slowing down.

Several neighbors in the area began pushing for traffic-control devices in 2001 after a young boy was struck by a car on Harvard Road.

“The speed cushions are something that we didn’t have experience with and we really didn’t know anybody who had any experience with them,” said David Woosley, the city’s traffic engineer. “It may be that they’re not effective enough to do again. That is one of the things we’ll be looking at.”

But Woosley said he expected drivers to slow down even if they were trying to drive through the grooves, because they don’t want to risk damage to their cars if their aim is off slightly.

“I don’t think you are going to have any of the 45 or 50 mph people out there like you used to,” Woosley said. “I think they are going to have to slow down to 30 or so, and that is the speed limit. That’s probably about all we can ask.”

The devices – along with five new traffic circles that were installed as part of the project – have created some parking questions. Betsy Hoke, who lives on nearby Goldfield Street, said she had seen several people parking either on or very close to the speed cushions.

Woosley said that the city didn’t regulate that practice. Parking near the cushions shouldn’t cause a problem, he said, because the road is not any narrower at a speed hump than anywhere else.

A driver makes an illegal turn despite a no right turn sign, in a construction zone at the corner of Seventh Street and Mass. St. Work Tuesday on a waterline in the 700 block between Massachusetts and New Hampshire streets shut down the eastbound lane but several drivers, including one woman who got a ticket for over 00, didn't see the signs and drove into oncoming traffic.

“People can park on the streets without a speed hump,” Woosley said. “The only difference is you have a hump to deal with.”

There is also no regulation on how close to a traffic circle a motorist can park. But Woosley said city officials were counting on neighbors to use good judgment when parking their vehicles.

“Obviously you don’t want to park so close (to the traffic circle) that another vehicle can’t get through,” Woosley said. “But we don’t like to put up ‘no parking’ signs in a residential area. They certainly aren’t the most attractive things.”

Woosley also said that before neighbors begin asking for the parking to be removed, they may want to consider that the on-street parking has traditionally been an effective way of slowing down traffic.

“We’re trying to slow people down,” Woosley said. “We don’t want to do something to the road to speed them up.”