‘J Street has turned into a racetrack’: Lincolnites concerned about speeding in Woods Park

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – People in the Woods Park neighborhood are concerned about the safety of their streets.

They say cars speed through the area without stopping at intersections.

Some intersections, like 37th and F street, don’t have any stop signs.

Neighbors said they see drivers going 60 to 65 mph in 25 to 35 mph zones.

David DeYong lives near 29th and J streets and said two years ago, someone ran a stop sign, crashed into his son’s car and totaled it.

“J Street has turned into a racetrack,” he said.

Michael Murray said the city put up stop signs near his home after a crash that left a car sitting in his front yard. He said if the car wasn’t speeding, it wouldn’t have ended up in his yard.

Stop signs aren’t enough, Murray said.

“When they are speeding this way, and you put stop signs the other way, that doesn’t solve the problem,” he said. “The problem is speeding. It’s not that people aren’t stopping; it’s the speeding.”

He also said people are cutting through the neighborhood to avoid traffic lights on 27th Street.

Dan Carpenter with the Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Department said the city installed no-parking and speed limit signs near Randolph Elementary School to slow traffic down.

“We did install additional parking restrictions around the intersection,” he said. “We enhanced the pedestrian crossings in the area where all the intersections are signed and marked.”

Carpenter said they consider many factors when deciding what signs to put up at intersections, like visibility and how bad previous crashes were.

To install stop signs, the city said, there needs to be three crashes at an intersection during a year.

Carpenter encourages neighbors to keep reporting their complaints to the city so officials can look at any problems.