In an effort to increase safety at the gates, the Hot Springs Village POA contracted with Mitchell Seal Coating to add additional rumble strips. The owners of the company, Dale and Kyle Schildgen were assisted by employee, Misael Garcia, with the installation of two new rumble strips in the West Gate decal lane.
Originally it was planned for the crew to also install rumble strips at the East Gate. Mitchell Seal Coating told me that due to supply chain issues, all of the ordered rumble strips did not come in, but they hope to receive them soon so the job can be completed. The inability to obtain necessary supplies and/or equipment seems to also be a common theme lately.
The purpose of the rumble strips is to slow down traffic at the gates. Drivers are already supposed to be driving no more than 15 miles per hour, but rumble strips serve the purpose of alerting and reminding drivers that they are approaching the guard shack and to slowly proceed with extreme caution, as guards are standing between the lanes.
To make the rumble strips more visible to drivers, yellow reflective paint will be painted in front of them.
Supervising and also assisting with the operation were Charles Brown, Director of Compliance and Contract Management – Rodney Tarbet, Safety Risk Manager – Todd Noles, Streets, and Sanitation Manager.
Director Brown explained, “Due to excessive speed of some traffic entering the staffed gates, rumble strips are being installed to help mitigate this. These are not speed bumps as they are lower profile. The speed limit is set at 15 MPH at both gates. These are also used to alert traffic of the need to be prepared to stop if directed to do so. The current plan is to have two in each lane at each gate, as long as the objective is met. We will evaluate over the next few months to determine if a third one is necessary. The installation of these will be complete once all pieces are delivered, this is expected to be within the next few weeks.”
Click here to read an article about the previous gate improvement project.
At the end of this article, there is a short video of the team.
