Councilor wants speed bumps on major Boston roads and a citywide speed limit of just 20 m.p.h.

City Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) said yesterday the city should expand its side-street speed-hump program to the city's main thoroughfares - and lower the citywide speed limit - to reduce the number of pedestrians sent to the grave by impatient speeders.

Flynn pointed to several pedestrian deaths over the past couple of years, including a young child outside the Children's Museum last year and a pedestrian killed in Andrew Square on Sunday - as proof the city needs to do more to contain its wild-in-the-street motorists.

In calling for a formal hearing on pedestrian safety, he also pointed to L Street in South Boston - and his parents Ray and Kathy:

"My parents tell me almost every day of them walking up to the South Boston public library from their home five or six blocks and when they're in the middle of an intersection walking up L Street, a car would go right by them, just missing two elderly people," he said. "We also see that happening when young families are in the crosswalk, little kids, people are just so impatient that they have to go 30 miles an hour up L Street and take people's lives in jeopardy."

Flynn called for a hearing at which to consider steps that would include reducing the citywide speed limit to 20 m.p.h. from the current 25, expansion of the city's "safety surge" speed-hump program from side streets to main streets and bus lanes and installation of "rapid flash beacon" pedestrian-crossing lights, raised crosswalks and pedestrian islands in the wider roads.

Referring to the four-year-old killed by the driver of a pickup outside the Children's Museum, he said it's good the city put a speed hump on Sleeper Street, but that it should also install them on Congress Street - along with a raised crosswalk right at the museum.

Flynn said he's talked to the Boston Fire Department and that it would have no problems with putting speed bumps or raised crosswalks on major streets - city officials had cited BFD concerns in the past about extending the "safety surge" traffic-calming projects to thoroughfares.

Flynn cautioned he is not calling for "road diets" all across the city, such as the one on Centre Street in West Roxbury, planned to reduce driver speeds and pedestrian menace in part by reducing two travel lanes to one by adding dedicated bike lanes a center turn lane, along with restriped crosswalks and re-timed signals to slow traffic down.

"One size does not fit all" and each road would need its own specific measures, he said.

He added, though, "to be clear for the wiseguys on social media," he actually did once support a "road diet" plan, and in his district, even, on Day Boulevard. He did not specify which wiseguys on social media he was addressing. He and mayoral aide Segun Idowu recently restarted their Twitter war, but the mutual flaming was over the mayor's proposed property-tax changes, not anything to do with road safety.

Watch Flynn request a hearing on the issue: