WBTW

City of Myrtle Beach considers new petition process to help make neighborhoods safer

You could soon petition the City of Myrtle Beach to make your neighborhood safer. 

The city is looking into establishing a formal petition process to hear neighbors’ traffic concerns.

The proposed petition process creates a formal way for people to make requests for things like speed bumps, sidewalks or traffic circles, and it gives the city the opportunity to formally respond. 

75% of property owners along both sides of the street would have to agree on the proposed traffic changes. The city said that’s to make sure they have a collective vision from the neighborhood instead of from just a neighbor or two. 

“People will say, yes we want this on our street, in some cases we’ve installed this, put a speed bump for example, and then the rest of the neighbors said, ‘What are you thinking, we don’t want that!'” Mark Kruea, city spokesperson said. “This process would give us confirmation that a majority of the people on the street or in the neighborhood really want this public improvement.”

Some people who live along Mallard Lake Drive in Market Common said drivers fly down the street. Even though the speed limit was recently dropped from 30 to 25 in Seagate Village they’d still like to see more done. 

“We have people coming through this place like a bat out of you-know-where,” Don Koenig said.

“I’ve had a couple of times where my dog has gotten loose,” Meg Vosburgh said. “It’s pretty scary.”

Overall it’d be about a six month petition process. The city manager would have two weeks to acknowledge the request then there would be two ninety-day periods of work and review. 

City Council still has to vote on the proposed petition process and is expected to talk more about all of this in January.