BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – A North Baton Rouge seventh grader says walking to her bus stop in the dark, with cars speeding past, is a daily concern. Now, a metro councilman is taking action.
Metro Councilman Darryl Hurst has launched “Operation Speed Hump,” an initiative aimed at identifying neighborhoods in his district where speeding is a problem and installing speed humps to address it.
Five children hit on one street in six years
Hurst said the need is urgent. “On Tracy Avenue near Joor Road there’s been about five kids hit by a car in the last six years,” he said. That’s just one area of concern.
Tiara Cole, a seventh grader who lives off Lemonwood Drive in North Baton Rouge, described the danger she faces each morning. “It’ll be like really dark and I’ll be walking and there’s cars speeding past and I’m trying to be on the side because I don’t want to get hit by no cars,” Cole said.
How the program works
Typically, neighborhoods and the city-parish split the cost of speed hump installation. Under Operation Speed Hump, Hurst is using $200,000 of his district’s Community Enhancement Grant to cover the cost instead…