City officials are hoping a new ordinance will curb a local street problem - the number of speeders.

The East Lansing City Council voted Tuesday night to approve an ordinance that would reduce the required width of local residential streets from 30 feet to 28 feet.

"The city has a neighborhood traffic program that noticed a lot of residents have complained about speeding," said Tim Rayner, city traffic engineering administrator.

The new ordinance will not affect already constructed streets but will apply to all public streets built in the future. No future public subdivisions are currently in the works.

The proposed width change was heavily debated by council and planning commission staff, but the 28-foot width was adopted at the recommendation of the city's public works and emergency vehicle staffs.

The new width still would allow for larger vehicles, such as salt trucks and fire engines, to pass through when cars are parked on the streets.

East Lansing City Manager Ted Staton said they also wanted to keep the streets wide enough to allow parking on both sides.

He said that slowing down traffic wasn't the only advantage of amending the street width rules.

"It's also an environmental concern," Staton said. "The less paved surface we have, the more the soil can absorb storm water and run-off."

East Lansing police Capt. Juli Liebler said she supports the ordinance and hopes it makes a difference.

"Generally, when people are traveling down a narrower street, they tend to drive slower," Liebler said.

In 2003, the police department issued 3,020 speeding tickets in the city.

The total is the highest it has been in at least five years.

Liebler said that the police get calls from concerned residents all the time about motorists speeding in front of their houses.

She mentioned Spartan and Stoddard avenues, as well as the neighborhoods on Harrison Avenue between Saginaw Street and Grand River Avenue, as some of the worst areas in the city for speeding.

In the past, The Department of Public Works and Environmental Services has made adjustments to residential roads to try to slow down drivers.

Two speed humps were added to Spartan Avenue two years ago. Stoddard Avenue was outfitted with shrub-covered islands running down the middle of the street in the mid-1990s.

Rayner said that previous projects were costly, and making the roads narrower will help save on construction and maintenance costs.