Wake Forest is testing speed cushions on Marshall Farm Street

The town of Wake Forest is installing speed cushions, a center median island and choker islands on Marshall Farm Street between Chalk Road and Rogers Road from Monday, September 21, through Thursday, September 24. Crews are working from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day.

The town is calling the work a pilot. Its announcement says the project will “evaluate several different traffic calming measures” and measure their effects on vehicle speeds and traffic operations. Once the devices are in, the town plans to monitor conditions and decide how well each one works.

What is going in

Three kinds of devices are going in, according to the town’s notice:

• Speed cushions are raised sections of roadway across the travel lane.
• A center median island narrows the road from the middle.
• Choker islands, also called bump-outs, narrow the travel lanes from the curb.

A speed cushion is a speed hump built in sections with gaps between them, so wide-wheelbase vehicles like fire trucks pass with less of a jolt.

Signs and cones will be up around the work zones, and temporary traffic control may change the pattern on Marshall Farm Street while crews work. The town suggests avoiding the stretch between Chalk Road and Rogers Road during working hours. Questions go to Engineering Director Tim Watson at twatson@wakeforestnc.gov.

What the 2020 policy says

Wake Forest has a written residential traffic calming policy, last updated in 2020. That policy does not allow speed bumps or other vertical deflection devices. Speed cushions are a vertical deflection device. The policy’s toolkit is horizontal: center islands, chicanes, chokers, mini-roundabouts and intersection diversions, plus signs, sidewalk markings and police enforcement.

How a street qualifies

Under the 2020 policy, a street has to meet these conditions before the town will consider calming devices:

• It has to be a town-maintained local road with a posted speed limit of 25 mph or less.
• It can be no wider than 40 feet, with no more than two travel lanes.
• It has to carry fewer than 4,000 vehicles a day.
• It cannot be a primary emergency services route.
• At least 15 percent of its traffic has to exceed the posted limit by more than 5 mph.

The process starts with residents. Neighbors run a Neighborhood Awareness Campaign that has to reach 75 percent of the affected residents, then submit a request form to the town. The Engineering Division then runs a traffic study, which the policy says takes about 90 days. Center islands, chokers and the rest of the policy’s top tier require a petition signed by at least 75 percent of property owners and a public hearing before the Board of Commissioners. The policy says the town has no dedicated budget for traffic calming, and residents may be asked to share 25 to 100 percent of the cost of those larger measures.

Also on the roads this week

Marshall Farm Street is one of several jobs on the town’s schedule for the week of September 21. The town posts current closures on its interactive traffic alerts map.

West Owen Avenue and South College Street are being repaved from September 21 through September 25, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. The work covers West Owen Avenue from South Main Street to South College Street, and South College Street from South Avenue to West Owen Avenue. It is part of the town’s 2026 Road Resurfacing Project, funded through the 2022 bond referendum, and Sunrock Industries is the contractor. Street parking is not allowed on those blocks during the work, and the town says vehicles left there will be towed at the owner’s expense. Questions go to Senior Civil Engineer Jesse Jones at 919-435-9446.

Because of that repaving, the Wake Forest Community House at 133 W. Owen Ave. is closed September 21 through 25. The Holding Park inclusive playground at the same address is closed the same week for equipment maintenance and landscaping, and a contractor, Clear Wood, is removing kudzu from the hill beside the Holding Park Aquatic Center. The town points families to the inclusive playground at Joey McCrea Wiggins Park, 416 N. Taylor St., in the meantime.

Overnight, Enbridge crews are reducing lanes on Rogers Road near Capital Creek from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., Monday through Friday, to move a gas line ahead of the state’s Rogers Road bridge project. The gas line has to move before construction can start on the $57 million Rogers Road bridge over the CSX rail line.

On South Main Street, near the Liberty Street and Forestville Road intersection, Raleigh Water’s contractor is tying in a water main overnight through Friday, with the road down to one lane from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.