South Street in Aberdeen has been a recent focus for us with the lowering of the speed limit to 20 mph and the addition of a 4-way stop.
We visited back this week to see what if any impact these changes might have made.
One of the things that jumped out most to us is that this "Shortcut" people take by using South Street as a way to drive between NC Highway 211 and the intersection of US Highway 1 and NC Highway 5 is really no shortcut at all.
We drove and timed both ways twice and below are the fastest times for each route - we were surprised at the findings.
FIRST TEST
To just continue driving on NC Highway 211 and turn right upon reaching US Highway 15-501, driving a Short distance before turning right onto US Highway 1 to finally reach the stoplight with South Street.
It took 2 minutes and 9 seconds to drive this way including driving the 45 mph speed limit and catching 2 red lights that we had to stop at.
SECOND TEST
To go down South Street you must immediately slow down from 45+ mph to 20 mph because you are now driving in a residential neighborhood, not a highway. There is a 4-way stop halfway requiring all vehicles to stop. Drivers must also slow down to cross the railroad tracks in downtown, and finally, you reach the line at the US Highway 1 intersection (hope it's short). The fastest we ran this doing the speed limit was 2 minutes and 37 seconds!
One of the more interesting things that we noted was each end of South Street is clearly marked No Thru Trucks. While we were there observing, a half dozen or more commercial vehicles drove right down the road.
On the brighter side, we sat at four different positions, and over a couple-hour period, we estimated that more than 60% of the drivers appeared to be driving at a slow rate of speed and were obeying the law. As for that other 40%….. they better be watching for blue lights in the rearview next time because APD does not play.
Now here is a no-brainer - rather than risk a ticket for speeding for taking a "shortcut" that is not a shortcut, go the correct way, drive the speed limit, and still save time.
South Street in Aberdeen is far from the only residential street that drivers use across Moore County in attempts to find shortcuts to their destination. Usually people are so focused on where they want to go, that they often don't realize sometimes shorter in our minds is not truly always the shortest way to our destinations.
07/04/24
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