WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — Community members in DC’s Michigan Park neighborhood say they don’t feel safe walking in their own neighborhood. Now, they are calling on DDOT after they say a new traffic calming measure along a local road is ineffective.

On Varnum Street NE, the speed limit is 20 miles per hour and stoplights flank both sides of the block. However, neighbors say the two measures don’t stop drivers from speeding through the side street. Despite the new raised crosswalk in the middle of the block, they say that’s not enough.

Mikel Maron and his family have lived in Michigan Park for 7 years. He explained that as soon as he and his wife moved to the area, they immediately noticed the lack of safety measures on Varnum Street. He worries about his three children whenever they have to cross the street to access the park nearby or to walk to school.

“We don’t feel safe crossing there. We haven’t for a long time,” said Maron.

According to DC Vision Zero data, just last year in Ward 5, there were 5 people killed and 77 others injured.

Colleen Costello, the ANC Commissioner for 5B05, says she’s put in multiple requests to DDOT asking for calming traffic measures like all-way stop signs or speed humps. She explained that DDOT refused to install stop signs at the intersection of 12th place NE and the crosswalks of Varnum Street, saying drivers are unlikely to stop rendering the signs ineffective.

When she requested speed humps for the road segment, she says DDOT told her the speed humps would be too close to the traffic signals on either end of the block. Costello says they received a raised crosswalk just over a week ago.

“I know for a fact that in other parts of the city like on capitol hill, DDOT has put in a lot of speed humps on blocks that are adjacent to traffic signals. So I don’t know why an exception can’t be made here either,” said Costello.

Other neighbors in Michigan Park say cars speeding down Varnum Street is an everyday occurrence and they’re tired of it including Annie Wolfson. She and her family have lived in the area for 10 years. Wolfson walks her children to school every day along Varnum Street and says the speeding has to stop. While she highlighted that the new raised crosswalk is better than nothing, it isn’t doing much to deter drivers from speeding.

“It’s not much of a speed table. Yeah, it’s pretty low. I think the cars can still go over it pretty quickly which is a little concerning because there’s a lot of kids walking through here to and from school,” said Wolfson.

Just one road over on Upshur Street, DDOT installed speed humps as a traffic calming measure, and neighbors say they want more to be done on Varnum Street.

“They would need to have a raised crosswalk with a sufficient slope that actually slows down cars. There should be signage saying there’s a raised crosswalk and it should be properly painted. [right now] there are two thin lines. There should be very prominent and reflective paint on the street so that people know that this is a place where they should be slowing down,” Maron explained.

Commissioner Costello says DDOT reached out to her on social media about addressing the issue but is hoping more can be done to make the area safer.

Shortly after 4 p.m., DDOT responded to DC News Now’s request for a comment about the issue, explaining that the project on Varnum Street is not yet complete.

DDOT Director Everett Lott also stated, “Remaining work involves adding high-visibility markings to the newly-installed raised crosswalk to help alert oncoming drivers to slow down as well as determining if slope adjustments are needed.”