The council last week unanimously approved funding of $50,000 to have speed limit signs, speed humps and medians placed on Paseo Lado, Devon, McFarland, Martha and McCoy avenues to discourage speeding along those streets.

Efforts to curb speeding began in June 2001, when Paseo Lado residents first brought to the Public Safety Commission their concerns over the high speeds of commuters driving down their street en route to Quito Village or Highway 85. The initial petition from Paseo Lado residents gave rise to the El Quito NTMP.

In September, the Public Safety Commission rejected the NTMP's proposal of turn restrictions, for fear that barring use of the streets during peak hours would lead commuters to seek an alternate route that would only transfer the problem elsewhere. The commission did, however, approve speed limit signs, humps and medians to force slower traffic.

A traffic study of Paseo Lado, Devon, McFarland, Martha, McCoy and Cox avenues confirmed that speeding was a "significant" problem on all but one of the streets, according to Fehr & Peers traffic engineer Sohrab Rashid. Except for McFarland Avenue east of Paseo Presado, all other streets saw a 53 to 89 percent rate of cars moving at speeds greater than 25 miles per hour.

With a speeding rate of up to 77 percent on Devon Avenue, that street had the third largest volume of speeders.

"That's a lethal dose," said Devon Avenue resident Elizabeth Lara, as she launched into a recent account of a driver who, wishing to drive above 25 mph, went onto the other lane and drove around her car.

Two other residents who spoke that night recounted tales of their cats being hit by speeding drivers.

Though all nine members of the public who spoke before the council supported the proposal, one woman did so with reservations. Paula McCarthy, the street representative for Martha Avenue, said residents on her street agreed to the traffic-calming measures only because they realized drivers would start using their street if it remained the one street without speed-reducing devices.

"We actually felt coerced into this," she said.

During council deliberation, Councilman Stan Bogosian remarked that the city could not afford to "continue with one more day" of the speeding problem. While council members agreed that the speed-reducing measures were important, Vice Mayor Evan Baker called the number of signs and humps requested by residents an "excessive wish list."

Mayor Nick Streit supported the idea that each street be provided with speed-reducing measures, though he was concerned with McFarland Avenue residents' request for two additional speed humps that were not included in the original proposal submitted to council. The last-minute request would have brought the entire project to $65,000, leaving $35,000 in the city's public safety traffic engineering budget for traffic-calming measures for the remaining fiscal year.

"We need to be frugal, because once this pot of $100,000 is gone, it's gone," Streit said. He also noted that El Quito "is not the only neighborhood with traffic issues" and that other NTMPs could possibly knock on the council's door with similar requests.

In the end, the council unanimously approved the project but decided to cap the fund at $50,000.