Residents see no relief against speeding vehicles in Upper Darby Township neighborhood

UPPER DARBY TOWNSHIP, Penn. - It’s a familiar scene on Owen Avenue between Garrett and Marshall Street in Upper Darby Township.

“You know they’re doing in excess of 60 mph, at least, on this street. It’s bad,” said Janice Johnson.

Janice and her son, Tom, have live on the street almost 20 years. They know all about the battle to slow speeders on this road.

“The original plan was that the block was trying to petition to get speed bumps on the road, but because it’s an emergency snow route, they couldn’t do speed bumps,” Tom said.

Video from when neighbors contacted FOX 29 to see the problem back in September 2019. Car after car, neighbors say, were using Owen Avenue to avoid the congested intersection at Lansdowne and Garrett. They petitioned the township then to do a traffic study and make improvements to the road. Since then, markings went up and bendable poles went in to force traffic into a single lane.

But, the poles are no longer there.

“People would run them over to get around each other and we actually had one really bad incident where two people were driving at the same time and they both went into the cattle shoot at the same time. They were face to face and we had like a traffic long across the road with people backed up because neither one of these people wanted to back up,” Tom explained.

Two stop signs were also installed.

“But, there are people that purposely run it,” Janice added.

“I’m not even sure the stop signs are actually enforceable because it’s not like an intersection or anything. People just go past them. Nothing has really changed,” Tom went on.

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