Del Rey Oaks temporarily acts on speeding issue debacle.

Just a few months ago, dozens of Del Rey Oaks residents were up in arms about vehicles speeding up and down Carlton Drive. The city responded by boosting traffic enforcement, but residents say that weeks later, enforcement dwindled down, leaving them once again fearful for their safety.

On Thursday, residents came back in bunches to voice their concern about the traffic issue during a special City Council meeting, where Mayor Jerry Edelen hoped to put a stop to the speeding debacle.

“By the end of this meeting we will have an action,” Edelen said.

And there was.

City Council members voted in favor of a 30-day trial in which traffic cones would be massed together to form a traffic island on Carlton Drive, and four temporary stop signs on Quendale Avenue and Portola Drive.

“If it works, we will make it permanent, if it doesn’t we come back to the drawing board,” Edelen said. “This is to slow down traffic and perhaps save some lives.”

But there is controversy surrounding the speeding issue. Some say it's perception, others say it's real and has been going on for years.

Police Chief Ron Langford, who was absent from the meeting despite it concerning a possible public safety issue, told the Weekly days before the meeting there have been zero accidents on Carlton Drive and that he would want “a traffic engineer to do a study and determine if any traffic measure should be implemented.”

He added there were only nine citations for speeding given on that street last year.

But last May, the city conducted a traffic study on Carlton Drive to track southbound and northbound traffic for a week. The findings were telling: 91 percent of drivers were said to be going six miles above the speed limit when going southbound on the street and 14 percent of drivers drove 10 miles above the speed limit. When going northbound, 82 percent of drivers went 5 miles above the speed limit, while roughly 10 percent sped 10 miles above the speed limit.

The speed limit on Carlton Drive is 25 miles per hour.

City Manager Dan Dawson said that on top of the temporary traffic-calming measure voted on Thursday, he will boost enforcement on the street.

It's important to note that Carlton Drive does not have sidewalks, which could also make it potentially more dangerous to walk on, but city officials say they wish they had more money to fix that problem.

The temporary measures were also done to protect the city from being sued. Portola Drive resident Paul Keene threatened to sue the city if they opted to put up speed bumps on his street, claiming it was not legally supported without a formal engineer traffic study that would determine if traffic-calming measures are needed.

City Attorney Christina Trujillo said a traffic study would protect the city in court if it is ever sued.  Edelen jumped in and said the law does not require the city to have a study to do any alterations to the road, it would just protect them in court.

A barricade closing Carlton Drive at Highland Street, the border with Seaside, was immediately ruled out at the beginning of the meeting because the city did not meet the requirements for it. Speed bumps were also not a “viable option for the city,” Trujillo said.

The city will revisit the subject in 30 days to determine if the temporary measures worked.