Lebanon — Police Chief Richard Mello agreed to work alongside Crafts Avenue residents over the next six weeks to resolve speeding on the West Lebanon street.

A handful of residents made their case to the City Council on Wednesday, asking officials to take action and discourage outside traffic by installing a speed table on the road. Several of them said they’ve seen close calls with cars and are worried about the safety of neighborhood children.

With Route 10 to the east and Route 4 to the south of Crafts Avenue, the road often serves as a shortcut for drivers not willing to wait at the nearby routes 4 and 10 intersection.

“There is a stream of Vermonters coming across the bridge going north to Hanover in the morning,” resident Morgan Swan said. “I don’t think any of us here want there to be an accident.”

Swan said neighbors were told that parking cars on the street could prevent speeding, but now residents have to worry when children cross the street on their way to the bus stop.

Although the road is posted at 30 mph, resident Catherine Goodall-Heising said that’s still too fast for a community with more than 20 children who like to play outside.

“For me, it’s not about speed tables or speed bumps, it’s about slowing traffic down,” she said.

Speed tables are wider than the more commonly used speed bumps and are designed to lift all four of a vehicle’s wheels at the same time to slow traffic. They’re often used as raised crosswalks, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, a New York-based group that provides city planners with design information.

This isn’t the first time Crafts Avenue residents have voiced their concerns to the city. A group of neighbors made a similar request in 2014.

Former Lebanon Police Chief Gary Smith began investigating those concerns with a traffic study in September of that year. He found an average of 162 vehicles travel the road daily, and a little more than 4 percent of those drove faster than 30 mph.

Smith was unable to find records of accidents on the street going back a decade.

The city’s guidelines for speed bumps recommend a road’s traffic be greater than 500 and less than 3,000 vehicles per day. They also require more cars traveling at speeds higher than those found in the Crafts Avenue traffic study.

“I want to assure you that all consideration has been given to your request, but the information gathered and its evaluation using the guidelines do not support installing speed bumps on Crafts Avenue,” former City Manager Greg Lewis wrote in a 2014 letter to Crafts Avenue residents.

Mello, the current chief, has spent the past two weeks picking up where Smith left off. He has visited Crafts Avenue twice over the last three weeks, staying for 30 minutes each time. During an afternoon commute, he saw only two vehicles on the street, both leaving homes. Mello then came back during a morning school commute and saw no vehicles.

In a letter to the City Council, Mello said it’s unlikely the traffic count has changed since 2014, nor is there evidence that the street is being used as a shortcut.

But on Wednesday night, he sympathized with neighbors and said he’s brought similar concerns about his own Merrimack, N.H., neighborhood to the police department there. The father of three said he’s asked for speed bumps on his street and raised concerns that street traffic travels too fast, a message highlighted when his German shepherd was killed by a speeding car.

“I keep that in mind when I look into these situations,” Mello told the council.

There’s no doubt that a speed table would work on Crafts Avenue, he said, but there are other tactics the police department can try, such as more enforcement, education, reducing the speed limit or closing the road to outside traffic.

City councilors agreed that action is needed on the street.

Councilors Suzanne Prentiss and Timothy McNamara petitioned the council to discuss a potential speed bump after getting complaints from residents and friends, and both expressed concern for residents’ safety.

With development underway of nearby River Park, Prentiss said, now is the best time to look at traffic controls.

The 38-acre development containing a collection of retail, office and laboratory spaces is expected to add nine single-family homes to Crafts Avenue on a new cul-de-sac called Crafts Avenue Extension.

“I think that whole area is going to change in the next few years,” she said. “I’d like to protect that neighborhood.”

McNamara said his family once lived on the street and saw cars cutting through the road.

“For a few thousand dollars and potentially less now than in the future, we could avoid a tragic situation,” he said.

Mayor Georgia Tuttle said safety should be a concern, but also cautioned against rushing to override speed bump regulations the council put in place years ago. She said the city should allow Mello to gather data and get a better idea of the problems on the street.

Council members agreed and asked Mello to produce a traffic study and work on improving speed enforcement and education efforts. He is due to report back to the council with his findings in about six weeks.

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com.

Correction

Residents of Crafts Avenue asked city officials to investigate ways to make their street safer during a meeting on Wednesday. An earlier version of this story misstated the date of the meeting.