MORGANTOWN — The city of Morgantown is emphasizing the “calm” in traffic calming as part of this summer’s paving plan.
Gone are the days of speed bumps, which are not calm and sound borderline illegal. Speed humps? Even worse.
Enter the speed cushion.
Morgantown Director of Engineering and Public Works Damien Davis said speed cushions will be among the traffic calming measures included in the 2023 street improvement plan.
Jokes aside, a speed bump and a speed cushion are the same thing for 99% of the vehicles on the road.
“They’re similar to a speed hump except that they have a path through them that accommodates the wheelbase of a fire truck or bus, where it doesn’t quite accommodate a vehicle,” Davis said. “A personal passenger vehicle still traverses it like a speed hump, where a fire truck can hit those gaps and go through without hitting the actual speed hump to slow them down.”
As for the actual paving, Morgantown City Council approved a $1.7 million bid from Parotta Paving for the work, which will include just over 9 miles of city streets, 2,700 feet of the Caperton Trail, between 6th Street and Reynolds Hall, and 33 ADA-compliant ramps.
The 9 miles of resurfacing work will be spread across some 45 city streets. A complete list is available at morgantownwv.gov/502 /Paving-Plan.
The city budgeted $1.8 million for this year’s work, meaning there could be some late additions to that list barring unforeseen complications or weather delays.
“The last couple years we’ve done a pretty decent job estimating and have had a little extra to be able to add some streets at the end,” Davis said.
The city’s annual paving project is funded through the $3 weekly user fee, known as the Safe Streets & Safe Community Fee. The fee, which is collected from individuals who work within city limits, was implemented in 2016.
According to numbers provided by the city, $1.77 of the $3 service fee collected each week is used to maintain the roughly 100 miles of city streets and the city’s public works department.
Questions about when and where this summer’s paving work would begin were not answered in time for this report.
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