HARLINGEN — Across town, residents are complaining about drivers racing souped-up cars through school zones and neighborhoods.
Now, city commissioners are cracking down, installing speed humps along hot spots popping up across the city’s five districts.
Meanwhile, police continue monitoring motorists in the city in which speed limits range from 30 mph in residential areas and 35 mph in business districts.
“We’ve been able to put in quite a few speed bumps,” Commissioner Rene Perez, who helped revise guidelines governing the city’s installation of speed humps, said Tuesday.
Revising guidelines
In June, Perez and Commissioner Frank Morales pushed to change the guidelines limiting speed humps’ installation to streets built with curb and gutter.
“The old standards were ridiculous because they were antiquated,” Perez said. “We were able to modernize them. One required the street have curb and gutter and lots of streets didn’t have curb and gutter. These are basic things the city should have been doing many years prior.”
Since he took office in May 2021, Perez, who oversees District 5’s sprawling west end, has requested speed humps be installed on roads including Tamm Lane, Kingbird Drive, Traxler Way and Beckham Road.
Across District 5, residents call speeding one of their biggest concerns.
“It’s a lot of areas on the west side of Harlingen,” Perez said.
On the campaign trail, he met with residents requesting speed humps along Traxler Way off Bass Boulevard.
“People told me they’d been trying to get speed bumps for two years,” he said. “It’s a narrow street, and they were concerned about their kids.”
Now, he said, he is working to install speed humps along Vista Verde Circle and Tucker Road.
Hot spots
As they work on new city business, Perez and Morales are requesting commissioners install speed humps along Tucker Road between Garrett Road and Lincoln Avenue.
But across town, many residents are calling for speed humps, Morales said.
“We’ve had a lot of requests from our constituents,” he said. “They’re concerned about people along school zones and in parts of town. It’s the kids. They’re racing all over the place. They’re racing in front of City Hall. They want to make the light.”
Morales, who oversees District 4, said hot spots include the areas along Expressway 77 to Commerce Street, South First Street, South Third Street near Taft Avenue and along school zones.
“That’s the biggest concern,” he said, referring to school zones.
Across parts of the city, officials have installed speed humps along areas including the 900 block of East Buchanan Avenue, along Pierce Avenue between 11th and 13th Streets, along Greenway Street at South 11th Street and in the 500 block of West McKinley Avenue, Assistant City Manager Craig Cook stated.
Residents point to accident scenes
Across much of District 2, many residents are also calling on officials to install speed humps, Commissioner Daniel Lopez, who oversees the district, stated, adding some even show him photographs of accident scenes.
“During my campaign, just about every neighborhood requested speed humps on certain roads due to speeders,” he stated. “They would show me photos of accidents that occurred, whether at the intersections of Sterling Avenue, North Shirley Street and West Vinson Avenue or on 17th Street and East Taylor Avenue. Reckless drivers are putting our neighborhoods at risk and this is just one way we can slow them down near dangerous turns or corners.”
Justifying speed hump installation
As part of the city’s guidelines governing the installation of speed humps, officials require at least 15 percent of cars traveling along a proposed speed-hump site exceed the 30-mph street limit by at least five miles, a city ordinance states.
For Sgt. Sal Carmona, the sergeant who heads the police department’s highway enforcement unit, justifying the installation of speed humps is part of the job.
Along the city’s streets, he monitors cars’ speeds using a digital sign flashing passing cars’ speeds or a “clandestine box” that is not visible.
When Carmona gets a request for a new speed hump, he sets up the recording devises to monitor passing cars’ speeds, he said, adding some requests are turned down.
“There have been citizens calling, concerned about what they believe are speed violators,” he said. “In many cases, we have one or two vehicles going over the speed limit. It doesn’t show a preponderance of all vehicles passing through over the speed limit.”
‘Lengthy process’
Like Morales, Perez described the process of requesting speed humps as “lengthy.”
According to a city ordinance, an area’s residents can petition for speed humps or commissioners can request their installation.
“We have requests — some of them have been turned down if they don’t meet the requirement for speed humps,” he said. “I get requests from people. I start it.”
After commissioners call for the installation of speed humps, the city engineer reviews the requests, the ordinance states.
“They tell me if its do-able or if it’s not do-able,” Morales said.
