STOP SIGN DENIED
So I live near a corner in SouthCentral that doesn’t have stop signs nor yield signs. Granted, it is not a busy corner, but people fly through all of the time. As a safety-conscious citizen of SC Wilmette, I inquired with the Village at their booth at the weekly farmer’s market on why no stop sign nor yield sign exists on our corner.
In a nutshell, they said they analyzed the corner and the north/south street traffic and determined that there was not enough traffic or a speeding problem to constitute a stop sign, let alone a yield sign. As a matter of fact, a citizen’s request for a stop sign on their corner up the road to replace a yield sign was recently denied.
In general, the policy of the Village is to not put up signs of any kind if not necessary. That’s why they go through a process to determine next steps.
While I really appreciated the chance to inquire about this, and loved the conversation and subsequent email below from the Village, I’m still concerned that there are many corners in Wilmette and in my neighborhood that do not have neither a stop sign nor a yield sign. Apparently, if no sign exists, you are supposed to yield anyway. But that doesn’t happen.
Anyway – would love your feedback. Here’s the explanation from the village.
Dear Mr. Rafeedie:
Per your request, attached is a scanned copy of the traffic data collected for xx Street. There are four sets of data. Northbound and southbound traffic was measured both north of xx and south of xx.
The AADT (Annual Average Daily Traffic) is 581 total cars south of xx and 550 total cars north of xx. As a benchmark, the Village’s traffic calming policy reference AADT’s of over 1200 as being indicative of cut-through traffic. The numbers for xx Street are reasonably low.
The 85-percentile speed data is used by traffic engineers to determine if there is a speeding problem. This is the speed that 85-percent of the traffic is travelling at or below. The collected speed data for this benchmark is as follows:
Northbound (south of xx) 28.97 mph
Northbound (north of xx) 24.25 mph
Southbound (north of xx) 28.58 mph
Southbound (south of xx) 29.48 mph
Referencing the Village’s traffic calming policy again, 85-percentile speeds that exceed 7 mph over the posted speed limit (in this case the posted speed limit is 25 mph, so 32 mph is the threshold) are indicative of a speeding problem. The 85-percentile speeds collected on 17th Street are very low.
I am happy to meet with you if you have questions or would like to discuss traffic issues in greater detail.
Warm regards,
Director of Engineering Services
Village of Wilmette
How strange. They admit that the average person speeds through that corner and yet they refuse to admit that there is a speeding problem.
How much does it cost to put in some stop signs versus answering citizens questions about the stop sign?
The real answer here is to get enough people to send questions that it becomes cheaper and easier to install something than it would be to continue to answer questions.
Listen to the advice of Salt-N-Peppa. Push it.