Speed bumps & traffic features in Utah
Speed bumps, humps, tables, bollards, and wheel stops are the parts of a parking lot that tell drivers where to slow down and where to stop. Grandview installs them on private lots and multifamily drives across Utah County and the Salt Lake Valley under a B100 general contractor license, sized to the speed you want and placed so the snowplow doesn’t tear them out in January.
When a traffic feature is the right fix
A speed bump is the right answer when the problem is behavior, not pavement: cars cutting through an apartment drive at 30 mph, delivery vans clipping the corner by the leasing office, a pickup that keeps rolling onto the sidewalk. If drivers can’t find the stalls or the fire lane, that’s a striping problem. If the lot is rutted and cracked, that’s asphalt repair. Traffic features control speed and position on a surface that’s already sound.
These features often ride along with asphalt parking lot resurfacing or ADA parking corrections, where the accessible route has to cross or bypass whatever we install. This page sits under asphalt and concrete paving within site, structure and envelope.
Bump, hump, or table: pick the speed first
The three names get used interchangeably, and they shouldn’t be. Each profile is built for a different target speed; the wrong one produces either a jolt that generates complaints or a feature drivers ignore.
- Speed bump. Three to six inches tall, one to three feet long in the direction of travel. Drops cars to 2–5 mph. Right for parking aisles, drive-through lanes, and gate approaches. Too abrupt for any road with through traffic.
- Speed hump. Three to four inches tall and 12 to 14 feet long, with a rounded profile. Slows cars to roughly 15–20 mph without bottoming out a low sedan. The standard choice for apartment drives, campus loops, and long private streets.
- Speed table. A hump with a flat top, typically 22 feet long with a 10-foot plateau. Holds traffic near 25–30 mph and doubles as a raised crosswalk, which is where most of our speed-table requests start. The FHWA traffic-calming primer covers the geometry behind these ranges.
- Bollards and wheel stops. Position devices, not speed devices. Concrete-filled steel pipe bollards stop a vehicle at a meter or storefront. Wheel stops keep bumpers off sidewalks, placed where they won’t block an accessible route.
Material follows the profile. Short bumps are usually bolt-down recycled rubber in modular sections with molded reflective stripes. Humps and tables are formed from hot-mix asphalt over the existing surface, or cast in air-entrained concrete when they double as a crosswalk and need an edge that survives plow blades.
What installing a speed hump involves
- Place it where it works. Humps go mid-block, not at an entrance or a turn, roughly 250 to 350 feet apart so drivers don’t accelerate between them. We keep them off drainage low points, because a hump is a small dam, and a summer cloudburst pooling behind it will find the base. A trough at the gutter line keeps water moving.
- Clear it with the fire authority. A hump in a marked fire lane needs sign-off from the local fire marshal, and some jurisdictions refuse them outright. Verify with the city before anything is built. On HOA property, board approval comes first.
- Build the profile. Asphalt humps get a tack coat, hot mix placed to a template, and compaction while the mix is hot. Rubber bumps are drilled and anchored with the holes sealed, so freeze–thaw water doesn’t work the anchors loose. Concrete tables are formed, placed, and broom-finished for traction.
- Mark it. Yellow reflective chevrons on the feature itself, and an advance warning sign where approach speed justifies it. Unmarked humps get hit at full speed and generate the complaints you were trying to avoid.
The snowplow question
Along the Wasatch Front, this is the decision that matters most. A plow blade rides at the surface and shears off anything bolted to it, so rubber bumps that do fine all summer are routinely gone, or dragged across the lot, by the end of a hard winter. Properties that want rubber either pull it each November and reinstall in spring, or budget to replace a few sections a year. Properties that want a feature that stays choose an asphalt hump a plow can ride over, and tell their snow contractor where it is. Bollards get a concrete footing below frost depth so heave doesn’t tilt them out of plumb by the third winter.
What moves the price of traffic features
Count and material drive most of it. As ballpark planning numbers, not promises: a bolt-down rubber speed bump across a standard drive aisle typically runs $500–$1,500 installed; an asphalt speed hump $1,500–$4,000; a concrete speed table with crosswalk markings $5,000–$12,000 and up; steel bollards $400–$1,500 each depending on diameter and footing; wheel stops roughly $100–$250 each, set and anchored.
A fire-lane redesign, a drainage trough through the hump, new sign posts, and mobilizing for a single unit push a job up. Bundling the features with a scheduled resurface or sealcoat, when the lot is already closed and the crew is already there, brings it down. We give a budget range after a site walk, then a firm estimate once count and placement are settled. Our B100 license is verifiable at dopl.utah.gov.
Questions we actually get
Will speed bumps survive a Utah snowplow?
Bolt-down rubber bumps usually won’t; the blade catches the leading edge. Asphalt humps with a 12-foot or longer profile do, because the plow rides over them. If you need rubber, plan to remove it for the season or budget for replacement sections. Either way, your snow contractor needs a map of what’s out there.
Can I put a speed hump in a fire lane?
Only with the local fire marshal’s approval, and many Utah cities won’t grant it. Fire apparatus is long, heavy, and low at the rear, and a hump can slow response or damage equipment. We check with the fire authority during layout and relocate the feature to another aisle if that’s the answer.
Do I need a permit for speed bumps on private property?
Usually not for the bump itself, but fire-lane changes, raised crosswalks on an accessible route, and anything touching the public right-of-way can trigger a review. HOA communities need board approval. We confirm with your city before scheduling, since the answer varies between Provo, Lehi, and Salt Lake City.
How many speed humps does a drive need?
Enough that drivers can’t build speed between them, which means roughly 250 to 350 feet apart along a straight run. A typical apartment loop needs two to four. One hump at the entrance does almost nothing, because cars accelerate past it. We walk the drive and mark locations before you commit to a count.
Tell us what you’re working on
Send us the address and what’s happening in the lot. You’ll get a straight read on which feature fits, where it goes, and what it costs, usually within a couple of hours during business hours.