Quiet little Princeton wants to slow down traffic

The top speed by Princeton Elementary School — or any other school in the county — is 25 mph.

Getting people to slow to that speed, however, has been an endless fight for residents of Princeton for more than a decade.

"It's been a concern for a long time," said Mike Azevedo, Colusa County Public Works supervisor. "It comes up every year at town hall meetings."

Because people driving above the speed limit — particularly when school children walk or ride their bikes to school — has been a long-standing problem on Norman Road, the county is installing a new digital speed sign to try and slow traffic, Azevedo said.

Azevedo said the speed violations in front of the school traditionally occur during duck hunting season, when hunters traveling into town on Normal Road forget or are unaware that a school sits along the roadway.

The view of the school is blocked by a slight rise in the roadway from the Princeton-Codora canal, he said.

"People pop over that rise and there's the school," Azevedo said. "It's something of a problem."

The permanent fixture, which will be placed off the eastbound lane of Norman Road, just west of the canal, may be installed within the next few weeks by Knife River Construction, which recently completed the traffic signal project in Colusa.

A digital read out will display the posted speed limit, followed by the actual speed of any oncoming vehicle, along with a message to slow down.

Azevedo said a similar problem exists near Princeton schools on Highway 45, but the road is not the county's jurisdiction.

"We've tried to get the state onboard," but we haven't had any luck," Azevedo said.

The Norman Road sign costs $67,923 and will be paid with money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Azevedo said the stimulus money was remaining from a road project recently completed near Grimes.

Knife River's bid was about $11,000 below the engineer's estimate, he said.

Contact Susan Meeker at 458-2121 or smeeker@tcnpress.com.