Cars keep crashing through Charlotte dog park. Neighbors petition for enforcement.
Residents of Plaza Shamrock and surrounding neighborhoods are rallying to improve a dog park facing chronic issues with speeding and drunk driving.
Damage to the park caused by a recent car crash has triggered an online petition and calls for city officials and law enforcement to combat traffic issues along the road that’s a popular cut-through for Charlotte drivers.
The concern, neighbors say, is both for public safety and the future of a community gathering place.
“This is a neighborhood institution,” Shamrock Drive resident Ryan Carter said. “As the neighborhoods around us change … this has been a place where residents come together to meet one another.”
Carter, president of the Plaza Shamrock Neighborhood Association, has lived in the neighborhood for about three years and has seen three crashes at the dog park, he says.
“Traffic has been ongoing, but traffic impacting the park really started last year, frankly this time last year,” he said Thursday. “We had two accidents … all within about two weeks of one another.”
Someone was using the park when the third and latest crash occurred and took out much of the fence around the park, Carter added. The person was not injured, but their dog was missing for a day after being spooked and running away.
The crash sparked discussion and venting on social media, including the app Nextdoor.
“These incidents will keep happening until we all send emails and reach out,” one resident posted.
Another resident started a petition calling for action from city officials that has garnered almost 300 signatures as of midday Friday.
“Shamrock Drive in general is completely unsafe when it comes to drivers. They think it is a NASCAR race track … We need speed control and the attention of our elected officials. I don’t want to wait for someone to get badly hurt before we take action. Enough is enough,” the petition reads.
The park is on land owned by Charlotte Water, Carter explained, but upkeep like mulching and putting out water bowls for the dogs is handled by residents. It’s considered a pop-up city dog park.
Shamrock Drive dog park
Carter said the neighborhood association has repeatedly reached out to city officials and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police about their concerns.
“Speeding is an issue … Two out of the three drivers that hit here were intoxicated. As a neighborhood, we can’t stop systemic intoxicated driving. However, we could really use some help with enforcement,” he said.
In the wake of past crashes, he said, the city painted a white stripe as a “line of sight” along the 1700 block of Shamrock Drive where the dog park sits. And neighbors came together to buy reflective tape and put it on the fence around the park.
Carter added residents have repeatedly been told by the city “the Shamrock Drive Complete Streets project” will address many of their concerns. The project, per the city’s plan, will add “turn lanes, sidewalks, bike lanes and crossings” along Shamrock “to help create a better bike/pedestrian connection between Eastway Drive and The Plaza.”
But that “does nothing for the fact of the reality that we’re living with right now,” he says.
“This is a terrible intersection right here,” Carter said. “We’ve been told that we can’t put in speed bumps because the fire department uses this road. I would say, ‘Well fire departments use every road and we still have speed bumps everywhere. Matheson Drive has speed bumps on it.’ And then we say, ‘Well what about rumble strips or anything like that?’ And then silence.”
The Charlotte Department of Transportation and Storm Water Services said in a statement they had “previously worked with several residents and organizations along Shamrock Drive to” lower the speed limit on the road to 30 mph and “install curve warning signs approaching the intersection of Shamrock Drive and Florida Avenue with 25-mile-per-hour advisory placards.”
“Following this most recent crash, CDOT will fill the gap in the double yellow centerline segments with short sections of double yellow centerline (called mini-skips) to enhance the delineation of the curve,” the statement said.
The Complete Street Project will eventually impact the dog park, the statement added.
“As part of the Shamrock Drive Complete Street Project, a stormwater control measure will be constructed where this temporary dog park is currently located,” it said. “Storm Water Services is assessing the situation and reviewing the project timeline.”
CMPD previously placed a “decoy car” in the park’s parking lot, Carter said, something he’d like to see return.
“It really made a difference,” he said.
A CMPD spokesperson told the Observer the department’s “Transportation Division and DWI Task Force hold weekly operations in targeted high-injury locations.”
“There are multiple focus areas in the Eastway Division including Eastway Drive and The Plaza,” spokesman Mike Allinger said.
Carter said the community will continue to push for more to be done to protect the park, a place where neighbors along Shamrock as well as from other nearby neighborhoods such as Plaza Midwood, NoDa and Country Club Heights come together regularly.
“We love having this dog park,” he said. “They can’t build anything here. It’s on a floodplain. … So it’s a great use of public space. We just want a little help from CDOT, from city planning, from CMPD to keep our whole street safe, because this is just emblematic of how things are going on Shamrock Drive.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2022 at 2:09 PM.
