State College resident Brett Oesterling's home sits at the intersection of Sparks Street and Foster Avenue. Each morning, he says his family gets quite a wake-up call.

"Our house is literally shaken by CATA buses and school buses on that road going well above the posted speed limit," he said at State College Borough transportation commission meeting.

He and a small group of concerned residents from the Holmes-Foster neighborhood -- an area encompassing Westerly Parkway to Beaver Avenue from Atherton to Buckhout streets -- gathered at Tuesday's meeting to discuss the commission's findings of a preliminary traffic engineering study.

Borough engineer Amy Story presented speed data the borough has collected over the past two weeks in response to traffic safety concerns residents voiced at a State College Borough Council meeting earlier this month.

Steve Thorne, who also lives at the Sparks Street and Foster Avenue intersection, said the neighborhood's two major concerns are the intersection and high speeds on Sparks Street.

Thorne said children live in many of the homes in that area and cross the street amid speeding traffic to attend Corl Street Elementary School, a daycare facility at the intersection, and a park. "It's terrifying," he said. "We're eventually going to end up with a tragic situation."

However, Public Works director Mark Whitfield said there is a school crossing for the students. "The most safe thing you can do there is put a school crossing guard, and we already have that," he said. "I don't know how you make it safer other than slow people down."

That's what Whitfield said the borough's been looking at. Last week, workers clocked traffic traveling north on Sparks through the intersection for three days; seven cars went at 40 to 45 mph through the 25-mph speed limit.

Eighty-five percent of motorists traveled at 35 mph or lower in that direction, which, according to borough guidelines, qualifies the area to be considered for long-term traffic calming.

Residents say it's the other 15 percent they're worried about.

"The eighty-fifth percentile is a lousy criteria," East Fairmont Avenue resident Bob Seibel said. "If you get even one car an hour going 50 mph in a 25 mph zone, that's a danger."

Recorded speeds at the southbound intersection did not qualify for traffic calming.

Whitfield said the commission would most likely address the residents' request for long-term mitigation in November. His priority right now will be assessing if the intersection could be made safer through physical changes like removing trees or prohibiting street parking along the intersection.

Whitfield said the borough has evaluated how far a motorist can see a car coming in either direction in the intersection. He said the borough found the site distances acceptable if the vehicle travels the speed limit, but will work with the state to assess distances for speeding cars.

Story said the borough also looked at traffic accidents over the past five years and found six police-reported accidents at the intersection.

Those accidents, however, are recorded accidents only, stressed West Foster Avenue resident Betsy Manlove.

"Most of the accidents that happen are fender-benders," she said. "We see quite a few accidents happen, and that must mean there's a problem with the intersection."