T Time at Forest Hills

[XLFD]

A most interesting phenomenon happened at the May 8th meeting of the Ludington City Council when the new police chief, Christopher Jones, brought forth a traffic control order to the council that would eliminate two pairs of stop signs in the Forest Hills section of the city at three way (T) intersections.  A fair sized contingent of the residents of that district came to the meeting to voice their support of the stop signs that the chief thought were unwarranted.  

This wasn't necessarily an unexpected phenomenon, as that neighborhood convinced then-Police Chief Mark Barnett 15 and 20 years ago to put those signs up in the neighborhood (at the red hexagons in the map) in order to slow traffic going through.  We also saw in 2010 that a petition signed by 144 citizens encouraged the city council to put in additional stop signs at Washington and Bryant (the red circle in map).  Downtown businesses at about the same time influenced the chief into putting two stop signs on Court Street where it crossed James Street.  

In those few years, four pairs of stop signs were put up that were fully supported by the neighborhoods that wanted them, looked at by the traffic engineer and viewed as plausible, and then approved by the sitting city council without much controversy and very little dissent.  The democratic erection of stop signs on these intersections had another thing in common:  they were totally unwarranted and made everything worse.

It's only natural that people living in a residential area would feel safer with more stop signs.  I own property on a three-way intersection in a residential area myself controlled by one stop sign (Pine and Jackson), and I am sure that I could go out and get a supermajority of my neighbors to sign a petition if I made many of the pleas made by the Forest Hills residents at the meeting.  Yet, I would never do that exercise because I know that the signs wouldn't be warranted and wouldn't be a panacea, it would be a problem.  That's why I was the lone voice at that council meeting thanking the new chief on his decision and urging the council to support him while explaining my reasoning.  

But the public outcry was offsetting to the council, so they decided to hold off deciding the issue until they had the chief do a traffic study that he was willing to do on the intersections and until the neighbors had a special forum to bring forth their views to the chief.  The logistics of such a study would not have it finished until at least the end of June, but the City scheduled the community meeting for May 23, this last Tuesday at 6:30 PM.  I attended this meeting where I once again was pretty much the lone voice among the people, stressing rules over perception.  

The meeting place was at the Lakeshore Resource Network just south of what one calls the Forest Hills neighborhood defined by the school forest to the east, Tinkham Avenue to the south, Monona to the west, and Bryant Road to the north.  Forest Hills would probably be considered the ritziest neighborhood in the city, serving as the home of the last two city managers, multiple lawyers, and other prestigious Ludington personages and their families.  

About two dozen of the denizens of Forest Hills attended along with four councilors (Terzano, Winczewski, Johnson, and Bulger) who remained quiet on the topic so as not to be accused of violating the Open Meetings Act.  Leading the discussion was Chief Jones with Mayor Mark Barnett seated nearby offering his own commentary and helping with the history of the signage.  

Jones would relate that he was originally given the assignment to look at the applicability of the signage at the two T-intersections by City Manager Mitch Foster, one of Forest Hills newest homeowners, living basically just off the backyards of his predecessor John Shay and his fire chief (and former three term mayor) John Henderson.  It was unknown whether Foster had made the inquiry on his own initiative or those of others, but it was an interesting tidbit of data.

Jones would then make a credible case as to why he believed the signs were justified while doing his best to salve the egos and viewpoints of those in attendance who he thought believed otherwise, which turned out to be everyone else but me.  Much of this duplicated his handout which indicated that the areas in question were both considered local, low-volume residential streets posted at 25 mph.  Both intersections had unobstructed views in all directions, and it was unclear why they were signed in all directions, and he could only find a temporary 2003 TCO for the Monona/Seminole intersection valid for 90 days with an intention to slow traffic.

Jones would note the Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) the Bible for traffic engineers, stresses stop signs should not be used for speed control and advised that both pairs of signs should be considered obsolete and removed but appeared seriously interested in what the public had to offer.  He included an excerpt from the MUTCD section 2B.04, highlighting subsection four of that rule.  He then decided to get input from all in attendance, going around the circular arrangement of tables starting on the side opposite of me, allowing me to go last.

About 15 people spoke on the subject, some allowing their spouse to do the talking.  Some were personally concerned for their safety; one couple had their driveway on the opposite side of the T intersection on Sherman.  Many shared anecdotes, likely true enough and sincere about both intersections.  What was absent from the folks in the neighborhood, was any technical support of their position, which was unanimously in favor of retaining both stop signs (though most didn't comment on both, just the one intersection that most affected them).  

So while it was feasible to them that hazards might exist if the signs were removed, no study or even traffic count could back up their claims of increased thru-traffic and non-compliance.  Nor was their any incident mentioned that would qualify as a traffic accident, just like there wasn't back in 2003 and 2008.  

Whether Chief Jones saved me for last as a potential supporter of his proposed TCO (as I did at the council meeting) or whether it was just a fluke of the seating, I started off by disclosing that I wasn't a member of the community-- although I do own property on the corner of Jackson and Pine Streets, directly south of Sherman but south of Ludington Avenue, which is a three way stop that properly has only one stop sign on Pine.  I would hope that my own neighborhood would never consider putting in an all-way stop at that intersection, but I could see a lot of folks being persuaded by arguments of it slowing traffic down and making things safer.

That's not the case according to studies, so the next thing I stated is that I probably won't agree with the chief on many things over time but that I agreed with his premise in this case but disagreed with his choice of guidance.  The guidance he presented was only valid with intersections with more than three approaches and so I reminded him there was exactly three at both intersections, making his guidance inapplicable.  I remarked that I regularly read the MUTCD and recognized that the applicable guidance for both intersections fell within section 2B.07, noting that it applies to three way intersections and guidance on when to put stop signs on all approaches.  

The guidance suggests that all-way stops are appropriate when traffic on both streets should be about equal and an engineering study should be performed.  If the study finds that vehicle traffic volume is over 300 vehicles total per hour for each approach for each average day for at least 8 hours then it may be warranted.  If crashes exceed 5 or more in a year period, crashes that may have been prevented had there been additional stop signs, there may be the need for all way stops.  

There was no crash history before the signs were placed, fortunately there hasn't been any since.  These are low volume residential streets.  I discretely did my own traffic counts on a weekday between 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM, and found that 22 vehicles passed Monona's signs, 20 vehicles passed the ones on Sherman.  These are nowhere near the numbers you need to put up an all way stop, not even 10% there.  Surprisingly while there was zero compliance with the Monona stop signs (rolling slow-downs was more common than rolling stops), there was over 50% compliance on Sherman.  

Additionally, the traffic from streets were nowhere near equal:  20 of 22 approaches to the one intersection was from Monona, 19 of 20 approaches to other was from Sherman.  These roadways are the main roads and should have no stop signs on them.   Stop signs are needed to assign right-of-way at an intersection, not to control speeding.  The slow/children sign already placed going up the Sherman hill perhaps along with a 'hidden driveway' sign would be more likely to prevent accidents than the unwarranted stop sign does now.  

Many Before-After studies show multi-way stop signs do not reduce speeds on residential streets.  Unwarranted multi-way stops increased speed some distance from intersections. The studies hypothesize that motorists are making up the time they lost at the "unnecessary" stop sign.  This effect was actually pointed out by a couple of Forest Hills residents as a reason to keep the signs.  I couldn't help but mention that an unwarranted stop sign is dangerous to other road users, since pedestrians and bicyclists, even young ones, can gauge driver behavior when no signs are present, but can never be sure about whether a stop, rolling stop, slow roll, or total disregard will happen at the redundant stop sign.  

I failed to mention, because I wanted to leave the venue alive, that Michigan law is clear and unequivocal: The City of Ludington is required by state law, section 608, 609, and 610 of the Michigan Motor Vehicle Code, to comply with the guidelines of the MI Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices when warranting stop signs, this means placement of stop signs not warranted by engineering studies violates state law. 

What this means is that unless Chief Jones through his engineering study can justify the desires of the Forest Hills community, which is highly unlikely based on my one-hour studies and the lack of crashes, he is mandated by law to make the intersections in conformity with the MI MUTCD.  The MI MUTCD is like the national manual, but "STOP signs should not be used for speed control." is upgraded to a STANDARD rather than just a guideline.  Let's hope we can correct some of the many other errors we have in traffic control around town after this exercise, presuming the city council eventually votes to follow state law and remove the redundant stop signs in Forest Hills.

[Willy]

Thanks for the information X.