Cleveland has installed the first of more than a dozen speed tables to slow down drivers on residential streets.
Mayor Justin Bibb and Cleveland City Council members showed off the first rubberized speed table – which resembles a wider, flatter speed bump – on Corlett Avenue in the Union-Miles neighborhood.
“I’ve long believed that as a community we should always be prioritizing people over cars,” Bibb said at the news conference on Corlett. “And we know that particularly in this community we’ve seen too many deaths due to cars that are speeding way too fast on our streets.”
Cleveland has seen an uptick in traffic deaths over the past two years, part of a nationwide surge in deaths on the roads. In 2020 and 2021, the city experienced 74 and 73 motor vehicle fatalities, while 54 people died in crashes in 2019, according to city statistics.
As part of a traffic calming pilot program, the city is setting up 14 rubber tables and one asphalt table in 10 locations around Cleveland, according to Calley Mersmann, City Hall’s senior strategist for transit and mobility.
The city will evaluate whether the tables are making a difference before potentially expanding the program. Asked how many more speed tables he’d like to install, Bibb replied, “As many as we can afford.”
Cleveland is also setting up 10 radar signs around the city that tell motorists how fast they’re driving. Council will pay for 18 more using its discretionary funds, according to the city.
Police also play an important role in the city’s efforts against speeding, Bibb said. Cleveland has invited the Ohio State Highway Patrol to assist in catching speeders, and the city plans for traffic stops in “hotspots,” according to the mayor.
The table on Corlett stretches across both lanes of the road between East 120th and East 123rd Streets, one block east of John Adams College & Career Academy, a public high school. A residential street lined with bungalows and classic two-story Cleveland homes, Corlett can also serve as a cut-through between two major north-south streets: East 116th and East 131st.
Although the speed limit is 25 miles per hour on Corlett, the average speed is 30, with higher-end speeds reaching 35, according to the city.
Ilene Jones Perry, who will turn 73 this year, said she has lived on Corlett on-and-off since she was 12 years old. She and her husband, Kenneth, sat on their front steps as city workers cleared chairs from the street after the news conference.
“I don’t even know the highest words to give,” she said.
“It’s beautiful,” her husband said.
“It’s beautiful,” she repeated. “I’m glad that this finally happened. We have speeders all night, all night long, all night long, three, four o’clock in the morning. There’s so many accidents that happen between the intersections.”
Two years ago, a driver ran a stop sign on Corlett around 2:30 a.m., striking and killing a 29-year-old motorcyclist, police told local media at the time. Later in the summer of 2020, Corlett was the site of a three-car collision.
“The neighbors are happy in this area,” Ward 4 Councilwoman Deborah Gray, who represents the area, said at Thursday’s news conference. “They have been complaining for a while [about] getting something done, and now it’s getting done.”
