Aspinwall police using multiple tools to address aggressive driving, speeding in the borough

Anna Hartle of Aspinwall holds out hope that one day people will slow down when driving past her Fourth Street home.

The longtime resident and some of her neighbors have let motorists know how they feel about going over the 15 mph limit.

“We yell at speeders all the time, ‘Slow down, slow down, slow down!’” she said on Jan. 21. “Our whole street yells at them.”

Habitual offenders, she said, are the ones who make the bend from Western Avenue and lay a lead foot to get to the nearby ball field.

The recreation site is used by many Fox Chapel Area School District families, some of which take up resident-permitted parking spaces.

“Our street’s always the worst because of the field,” Hartle said. “The police are doing their job. It’s just not working. They need a better solution before someone gets hurt.”

Resident Sherrie Rizza shares Hartle’s concerns. She lives on the same block along Fourth Street.

“It’s not every car that goes by either,” Rizza said. “Those of us that live here do go the speed limit. We’re looking for a parking spot and know there are kids on the street. What I would like to see, especially on our street, are speed humps.”

Unfortunately, speed humps are not an option, according to borough manager Melissa Lang O’Malley.

“We’ve investigated speed bumps/humps in the past with our engineer Dan Martone,” O’Malley explained via email on Jan. 22. “Speed humps/bumps need to meet a specific criterion before they can be installed. The width of the street, the parking set up, the average speed of the cars needs to be 10 mph over 25 mph, and slope of the hump are all factors. Instead of installing bumps, we are adding rumble strips and slow down plastic adhesives on the street.”

Borough efforts

Police Chief David Nemec said speeding is something his department has been addressing for years with a variety of different tools to combat aggressive driving and identify problematic areas.

Rumble strips, also called traffic calming strips, were installed along several streets in 2023.

They can be found along Second Street, Emerson Avenue and 11th Street. Three white lines have been etched into the road followed by the word “slow” and triangles used as arrows.

The police department also utilizes a speed machine that flashes how fast a driver is going.

Once a problem area is identified, an officer is posted there to use the AccuTrak speed enforcement system.

It involves painted lines on roadways and an officer-operated device similar to a stopwatch.

The department recently purchased a LIDAR device to help with speed data collection. It was bought through Dragon Eye Technology for about $1,200.

“Through the years, we’ve added more things,” Nemec said on Jan. 15. “As more equipment becomes available, that we feel for our town is going to work, that’s what we do.”

Officers move to different zones daily, Mayor Joe Noro said.

“We can do more streets, more avenues, we can also do Freeport Road to slow down traffic,” the mayor said. “PennDOT asked us to take care of Freeport Road. You’ll see a presence on Freeport Road slowing down traffic, making sure people stop at red lights. Things like that.”

Speed data is mostly kept in-house. The chief did share some of what was tracked within a month.

Nemec said 20,456 cars were tracked along Center Avenue from Dec. 15, 2024, through Jan. 15, 2025.

The average speed was 22.42 mph. The speed limit is 15 mph.

The borough was in the process this month of installing solar-powered flashing stop signs. One was installed at the intersection of Third Street and Field Avenue.

Traffic citations issued in 2022 were 1,147, 701 in 2023, and citations jumped to 1,023 in 2024.

They include speeding tickets and failure to obey traffic control devices.

There was an increase in Aspinwall traffic in 2022 largely due to Highland Park Bridge and Route 28 construction.

Slow Down Campaign

Police and the mayor launched a new Slow Down Campaign in August to remind residents and motorists that school would soon be in session.

Yard signs were installed at strategic sites throughout the borough, particularly near bus stops, busy intersections and other high-traffic areas.

Locations included Center Avenue, 11th Street, Second Street and Eastern Avenue.

Messages include “Slow Down Save Lives” and “It’s a Road Not a Race.”

The first day of classes for Fox Chapel Area School District was Aug. 22, and the first signs were installed about a week in advance.

Signs were up for about three months before being taken down shortly before Halloween to avoid being damaged in the winter. Some signs acquired by residents are still up.

Signs are free. Those interested in getting one can contact the borough office.

Noro said the campaign made a difference, including a reduction of 5-6 mph in those areas.

“We also saw that when we put these up in the community, people were actually paying attention and stopping at stop signs better,” Noro said. “A complete stop. Actually caring (and) looking both ways — it helped us in two different ways.”

There was also a reduction in traffic tickets during the campaign.

Nemec said citations issued in April, May, June and July were, 105, 79, 67, and 124, respectively.

Citations in August, September, October and November were 122, 78, 63, and 35, respectively.

Requests for speed reports three months of the campaign and three months prior were not fulfilled as of press time.

Noro said he plans to bring the signs back around March.

“All the things that we do, it helps the community,” Nemec said. “It gets the community knowing that the police are out there when (residents) have their concerns.”

More ways to address traffic will be a topic of discussion for the mayor’s advisory committee, which includes the borough manager, police chief and deputy chief.

“We meet every month on distracted driving,” Noro said. “We talk about stop signs, speeding, pedestrian walk(ways). We look at complaints. We look at our speeding reports. We do short-term and long-term goals.”

Efforts noticed

Residents have noticed the efforts to improve pedestrian safety, though some question their effectiveness.

Steve Kochanowski of Fifth Street recalled seeing one of the slow-down signs at the intersection of Fifth Street and Western Avenue.

“I think people did pay attention if they saw them,” Kochanowski. “Before that, when the signs weren’t up in town, a lot of people did go through (the stop sign).”

He said Fifth Street was also paved within the past year, which led to more people speeding and people making wrong turns.

“The bigger issue we seem to have with Fifth is people driving the wrong way,” Kochanowski said. “People turning from Center and going back the wrong way (to get to the field). We don’t have parking on both sides of the streets, so we don’t have some of the issues — some of the other streets in Aspinwall have both sides of parking and people not being able to see.

“Public works has done a really nice job of putting new crosswalks in and really marking the crosswalks now because they were faded before.”

Resident Emily Town lives along the 100 block of Second Street near the rumble strips.

She said people were driving more cautiously a few years ago when there was a sinkhole along the roadway compared to what she has seen recently.

“People would hit that hole hard,” Town said. “You’d hear cheering when someone got their just desserts. It was a natural sort of speed deterrent. People who knew it was there had to stop.

“When you go over (the strips) they don’t really rumble your car. They’re more reflective. You see them, but they don’t really make a huge difference to your rate of travel when you go over them. I was excited to hear they were going to put something in, and then when I saw it and drove over it it kind of wasn’t anything. I forget that they’re there.”

Town said people speeding is not the police department’s fault and commended the borough for addressing traffic concerns.

“I recognize it is hard to go 15 mph,” Town said. “You have to try to go that slow. You really have to make a concerted effort to do it.

“I think people don’t think 25, 35, 40 mph is that fast. I would probably agree if I was on a country road somewhere and houses were a mile apart. That five, 10, 15 mph difference is huge (here).”

Rizza echoed Town’s comments about the rumble strips and recalled when the flashing speed reader was used on her street.

“There’s no doubt that there are efforts and there’s no doubt that they hear us and have tried different things,” Rizza said. “It helps for a little while and then it just goes back to the way it was. It’s a problem that no one seems to have an answer to fix. It’s not just our street.”

Adriene Rister, owner of the children’s bookstore Spark Books at the corner of First Street and Brilliant Avenue, has noticed the rumble strips, slow-down signs and speed monitoring devices.

However, she said work keeps her busy and felt she could not comment on their effectiveness.

A lot of her patrons walk to the store, often with strollers and young readers for storytime.

Rister said she appreciates anything that boosts pedestrian safety.

“Anything we can do to slow down the traffic and keep pedestrians and kids safer is a fantastic move,” Rister said. “Safety is number one.”