The Homer City Council unanimously approved a resolution to direct the city manager and public works department to look into speeding issues on West Fairview Avenue last night.
Council member Jason Davis sponsored the resolution. He said the city wouldn’t normally address singular speeding issues, but that this is a unique situation.
“The city's decisions and the city's funding were responsible for the situation that exists at that site, in a way that it is maybe not the case that some of the other places where we have experienced speeding issues that we will be addressing at our next meeting when we talk about traffic calming measures,” Davis said.
He said the unpaved connection is wider than paved parts of the street, and residents have noticed more speeding in the area.
Homer public works director Dan Kort said in a memorandum the city extended the road to create a continuous path from West Hill Road to the city’s medical district in 2022. They made the path wider to allow for an unmarked walkway.
Kort wrote the developer at the time made a verbal agreement with the city to pave part of the roadway. But the developer’s changed since then and there aren’t any plans to pave the road.
The city placed traffic cones and a mobile speed monitor to curtail speeders last summer, but Davis said those would get in the way during winter maintenance. He said the council backing this decision should give the city more flexibility to look into and address speeding issues.
“It's not just a few of us that are concerned by this, but that the council as a whole is giving them cover to take steps that would be outside their ordinary steps and involve a significant investment of resources and thought,” Davis said.
The council also introduced an ordinance to purchase more speed monitors at the same meeting and will discuss other ways to address speeding across the entire city at a work session on Oct. 14.
