Speed cushions installed on Winston Road. (Photo by Pete Mazzaccaro)

You might be forgiven if you saw the Street's Department's new speed cushions along Gravers and Mermaid lanes and thought they might just be badly patched asphalt after a PGW job.

The speed cushions began to appear in Chestnut Hill about two weeks ago. The installations are rows of three asphalt humps that stretch across the street. There are small gaps between each bump,  designed to be straddled by ambulances but too wide for most cars.

The installations were first made on East Mermaid Lane and East Gravers Lane. Both had no marking, stripes or signs to indicate to drivers to slow down. On Monday, they were being installed on Winston Road between Mermaid Lane and Willow Grove Avenue. These were being striped to indicate to drivers to slow on approach.

The Local confirmed last Friday with Kasim Ali, assistant chief traffic engineer with the Philadelphia Department of Streets that the speed cushions were indeed being installed by the city. Ali promised more information was on its way regarding where else we might expect the speed cushions and why the department decided to install them.

We'll update this post when we get more information.

Interestingly, I advocated for speed bumps in Chestnut Hill in an August 2012 editorial.