Residents will get a chance to weigh in on a proposed traffic-calming policy designed to instill uniformity into the process while addressing traffic safety in residential neighborhoods.

Public Works Committee members reviewed the policy Tuesday. The immediate response of several members was to provide the public with a comment period before voting the measure up or down.

Muskogee resident Floyd Owens said he’s concerned the policy as proposed may wind up pitting neighbors against neighbors.

“It looks like the whole thing is going to end up being a neighborhood argument,” Owens said. “Either there is a (traffic safety) problem and the city acknowledges it and addresses it, or there’s not.”

Owens’ concern stems from the events that unfolded along Kimberlea Drive between the 2700 and 3100 blocks. Owens garnered the signatures of a number of residents asking the city to install speed bumps to slow speeding motorists.

Instead of approving the speed bumps, the construction of which is more acute than the less obtrusive speed humps embraced by the proposed policy, city officials authorized the installation of stop signs as an interim measure. Within days, vandals removed the signs, and one other neighborhood resident retaliated by circulating a petition to remove the signs.

Owens said the second petition included numerous signatures from people who live nowhere near his neighborhood. If the city allows people from outside a neighborhood to influence traffic-calming efforts in that area, Owens said, the proposed policy won’t work.

Public Works Director Mike Stewart, who orchestrated the development of the proposed policy, acknowledged that public input would be instrumental in the successful implementation of the plan. Stewart’s proposal states “the program must involve the public and clearly be understood by all participants.”

The provisions proposed indicate requests for traffic-calming assistance would begin with the city working with the neighborhood “to clearly define the problem.” The applicant would be required to petition neighbors to determine the level of support and opposition.

“There must be at least 75 percent of all households within the project area in support of the traffic-calming device,” Stewart said. “This is a standard widely used in all the policies we looked at.”

In addition to the mandatory neighborhood support, the policy would allow any registered neighborhood association adjacent to the area where a traffic-calming device is being considered to endorse or object to the proposed project.

City councilors expressed appreciation for the efforts Stewart, his staff and the city manager put into the development of the policy. But some concerns were expressed. Among them were:

• The cost assessed for materials used in the construction of the speed humps that must be born by the neighborhood requesting the traffic-calming device.

• The various techniques used to construct the speed humps.