SPRINGFIELD — Josh Gaskill said his employees and customers have slammed their brakes dozens of times in the past year to avoid cars traveling on Pierce Parkway.

Because of cars parked along the street, motorists pulling out of the driveway of Gaskill’s company, O&S Contractors, couldn’t see the vehicles coming from the neighboring federal complex, he said.

“It’s just a matter of time before it (a crash) is going to happen,” said Gaskill, the company’s vice president.

Gaskill said his brother Jeff, another company executive, lobbied the city for about a year to prohibit parking along the street, and kept him updated on the progress.

Their reassurance when the city installed no-parking signs a month ago turned to surprise and then anger last week when a city employee notified him the city was going to remove them. The city removed the signs Tuesday.

The about-face highlights how residents with anecodatal evidence and traffic engineers with data can come to different conclusions on the hazards posed on a city street.

In this case, the street leads to a large federal complex that houses offices for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the federal Forest Service’s Willamette National Forest and an Oregon National Guard armory.

BLM spokeswoman Jennifer Velez confirmed that a BLM employee had contacted the city to inquire about the new signs.

Employees of BLM and other agencies work in the building in the complex that is closest to Pierce Parkway. The federal complex has onsite parking. But the street parking along Pierce Parkway might be more convenient for some people using some areas of the federal complex.

Velez said the agency would abide by whatever the city decides.

“Whatever they say is what we will — and we hope anyone parking out there would — adhere to,” she said.

Gaskill accused the city of bowing to pressure and putting BLM’s concerns about inconveniencing its employees and visitors over his company’s concerns about safety.

“It’s one phone call from them and then everything stops and they’re taking them (the signs) down,” said Gaskill, who added that he too, has had to slam on his brakes to avoid an oncoming vehicle on Pierce Parkway.

Jeff Gaskill had been in contact with one of the city’s traffic engineers, who has since left the city on good terms. The employee decided against the signs at first but later changed his mind.

“I think the wheel was squeaking,” said traffic engineer Brian Barnett, referring to concerns from Gaskill, when asked about the city employee’s about-face.

Barnett said he signed the work order to install the signs based on the employee’s verbal description of why he thought they were needed. There had been nothing in writing to back up his conclusions, Barnett said.

When BLM contacted the city to ask about the removal of the on-street parking, another traffic engineer tasked with responding to public requests took the call.

After hearing about the concern, the engineer investigated after he learned there was no documentation backing up the installation of the city’s no-parking signs.

Gaskill maintained that cars leaving the complex are frequently speeding, with some drivers reaching speeds of up to 50 mile per hour.

“They’re going as fast as the car can go when they get right here,” he said, standing near his company’s driveway.

The speed of cars leaving the complex combined with an obstructed view creates a dangerous situation, he said.

The engineer, Michael Liebler, came to a different conclusion.

He visited the location on May 22 and again on June 9, the same day he notifed the Gaskill brothers the city would be removing the signs, to measure the speed of vehicles during the evening rush hour. The posted speed limit is 25 mph.

He spent more than two hours on site and tracked the speed of 163 vehicles using a radar gun. It was sunny on both days.

Based on those speeds, he calculated the fastest 15 percent of motorists were travelling 30 mph. Traffic engineers commonly use this so-called 85th percentile speed to identity streets plagued by speeders.

The raw data requested by The Register-Guard show of the 163 vehicles, 21 drove faster than 30 mph. Three vehicles went 40 mph or faster; the top recorded speed was 42 mph. The numbers of speeders was typical of a local street, Liebler said.

Standards followed by traffic engineers show a driver travelling at 30 mph needs 200 feet to come to a stop if a car pulls out in front of him. It is 220 feet from the federal complex’s entrance to the company’s driveway, according to Liebler’s field measurement. A pavement security barrier at the entrance of the complex acts to slow down vehicles leaving the complex, he said.

Liebler concluded “the sight lines should be sufficient” for a turning motorist from the O&S property to see oncoming vehicles with the on-street parking, given the typical speeds they are traveling on that stretch of Pierce Parkway.

“There is no engineering rationale as to why we would want to prohibit parking there,” Barnett said.

Barnett said he takes responsiblity for the decisions to install and then remove the signs but maintains it’s the right call.

He said it’s important for his department to base its decisions on engineering rather than anecdotes, so that parking and other changes are applied consistently and for good reason.

“If something is not clearly unsafe, then we don’t take actions to merely feel better about the situation simply because perceived safety and real safety are very different things,” he said.

Concerned about the potential liability to his company, however, Gaskill said his firm’s lawyer will send a letter to the city about its decision to remove the signs.

“Not every situation works out to a calculation that you do on a piece of paper,” he said. “There are always special circumstances to everything.”