Vendome’s War Against Speeders

Every minute of every day, cars speed along Vendome, creating a public safety hazard.  In their years-long battle against speeding, residents there have pleaded with City officials for changes ranging from lower speed limits, better signage, diverting traffic to Octavia,  changing Vendome to a one-way street, or even capping off its north end, creating a cul-de-sac.

As an experiment, I recently marked off a 500-foot section of Vendome’s southbound lane between Dart and Grape, then carefully timed vehicles which appeared to be speeding.  It’s supposed to take a vehicle 13.6 seconds – traveling the posted 25 MPH – to traverse the block in question.  During my 4 hours of testing, no fewer than 50 cars and trucks clocked in several seconds faster than that (see chart, below), averaging 6.5 MPH over the limit.  One red taxi in particular set the official record: 8.21 seconds, hitting 41.5 MPH and still accelerating as he passed Grape Street (twice)!

At my request, 2nd District Commander Paul Noel asked NOPD’s Traffic Division to come monitor Vendome with radar.  Despite limited available manpower, Traffic complied by stationing a motorcycle officer on Tuesday, March 13, between the hours of 4:30-8:00pm.  That deployment resulted in 12 vehicle stops and 12 speeding citations.

Clearly, a long-term solution to the speeding problem is still called for.  Whether Vendome residents will succeed in getting a camera or speed bumps is uncertain; Mr. Sheirman from DPW recently told a group of concerned citizens that such measures, while plausible, are unlikely.  While the City’s recent change in protocol means speed cameras no longer trigger at speeds below 10 MPH over the limit, I believe my own experiment proves that plenty of Vendome’s speeders are exceeding the new threshold.