Board Approves Stop Signs Along St. Francis Avenue

A proposal to place stop signs on St. Francis Avenue at 34th Street in hopes to slow traffic moving through the child-laden neighborhood gained traction after the city's Public Works Board approved it Tuesday night.

In an attempt not to overload the street with stop signs, however, board members decided to remove the east-west stop signs one block east on St. Francis Avenue at the 33rd Street intersection.

The decision to move the stop signs was partly based on a recommendation from Dan Ewert, Superintendent of Public Works, who seemed somewhat hesitate to use a stop sign as a speed-reduction mechanism.

He said standards suggest stop signs should be used in specific cases such as when a side street meets a thoroughfare or when the combined vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic averages more than 2,000 units a day at an intersection.

"Yield or stop signs should not be used for speed control ... people should know that (even) with stop signs out there, people won't stop for them," Ewert said.

According to some estimates, as many as three dozen children live within the two-block radius of the St. Francis Avenue and 34th Street intersection.

"There are a lot of children without a lot of sidewalks," said Lori Karcher, a mother of young children who lives south of the intersection.

"I don't know of any instances of accidents in that particular intersection, but I do know that coming up 34th Street from Morgan, there is a lot of blind spots, especially in the summer when the landscaping is in bloom," she added.

Kelly Beiver, a father of young children who lives a few houses south of the Karchers, echoed his neighbor's sentiments. 

"I see cars flying through there going north and south and east and west," he said. "I think it is very important for the safety of our children to place at least a two-way stop there in that intersection."

Director of Neighborhood Services Richard Sokol suggested examining the placement of a speed hump at the intersection. A speed hump would cost about $15,000 and take a week to install, according to Sokol.

"We have these kinds of issues throughout the city of Greenfield. This is not a unique situation or a unique neighborhood," Sokol said. "We are looking at traffic calming techniques, different techniques that are available to us to try to convince people that we really mean 25 miles per hour."

The proposal needs to be approved by the Common Council before the city changes the stop signs in the neighborhood.