Dallas

Oak Cliff Residents Meet to Put the Brakes on 12th Street Speeding

A nearly three-quarter mile stretch of 12th Street does not have a stop light

A meeting in an Oak Cliff neighborhood Monday night is geared toward putting the brakes on speeding problems that have caused a handful of recent crashes along 12th Street. Some residents are asking for stop lights, stop signs or speed bumps.

"It's really frustrating whenever you're out in the front yard and we have small kids and people are just flying. They don't even slow down," said Monica Berry, an Oak Cliff mother of two.

While Berry said she worries about street racing in her area, Robert Bermudez has seen the damage from a crash firsthand. On Sept. 15, a car and a truck plowed through his wrought iron fence, into his front yard. We asked if he was worried for his grandkids who often play there.

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Vanessa Brown

"Yes, because what if they were playing around here? They would have hit them," Bermudez said.

Many residents in the 12th Street area are pleading for permanent change after witnessing wreck after wreck, like one that happened nine days ago.

Stephen Holmes is among them.

"We talk to the police actively to try and get them to run speed traps," he said.

Holmes went door-to-door Monday, letting his neighbors know about the 5:30 p.m. meeting that was expected to draw Councilman Scott Griggs, as well as Dallas police officers and transportation officials.

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Vanessa Brown

It's one neighbor Audrey Atkins hoped would bring a solution.

"The service requests have been denied by the city of Dallas every single time. We been doing this for years, they've all been denied to put in any kind of traffic stop," Atkins said.

NBC 5 drove the so-called problem area on 12th Street, from Edgefield Avenue to Hampton Road. It's a nearly three-quarter mile stretch without a stop light.

The reason, according to Atkins:

"That there haven't been enough wrecks," she said.

Dallas crews conducted a traffic signal study within that section at Oak Cliff Boulevard and 12th Street and determined the intersection didn't meet the minimum requirements. Atkins learned that news about six weeks before the Sept. 15 crash.

"We don't want to be sitting around here as a neighbor saying, 'We told you so' when a kid is killed, when one of us is killed," Atkins said.

This spring, Dallas police added a task force targeting street racers, but residents told us things haven't improved. It might not be an easy fix, but they're hoping something good will come from Monday night's discussion.

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