I don’t know about you, but I’ve lived in this town for 18 years and I’ve watched the traffic go from almost nothing to crazy in the passing years! I live in a newer subdivision, Lakewood Ridge, which is off of Orchard and Boughton. It’s a nice subdivision with close to 500 homes in it. We have a nice new park that is smack in the middle of the subdivision. So one half of the subdivision has to cross Orchard Street to get to the park, which is proving to be a “life threatening” task. There are no stop signs on Orchard from Boughton to Briarcliff and with the way some cars drive, you would think that stretch of road was the Indy 500 straightaway!! Several of us residents have complained to the police and to the village that we wanted a stop sign erected near the park so that there would be a stop in the flow of traffic. By stopping the traffic, kids and everyone else would have a safe place to cross the street.
As a result of our complaints, we had meetings with the village officials and they initially felt that a stop sign was not necessary based on their evaluation of the situation. The police did a traffic study and discovered that the VAST majority of people speed down that road all day long.
So far, we haven’t gotten the village to put in a stop sign but they have agreed to put in a new kind of crosswalk, something that the mayor, Roger Claar, first saw on a visit to California a while ago. It’s called an “illuminated crosswalk” and it’s pretty cool. There will be the painted crosswalk on the street but there will also be lights that are imbedded into the road that will flash to warn motorists when someone is trying to cross the street. The lights will be activated by a person pushing a button at the crosswalk sign. Our subdivision is going to be the first in the village to try out this new crosswalk system. I am concerned though that drivers still won’t stop even if lights are flashing so only time will tell if it’s going to be successful. We are hoping to add a sign to the crosswalk that states, “stop for pedestrian’s in crosswalk”.
That’s our crazy traffic story, but I bet a lot of you out there have your own stories to tell as well. Let us know what you think about the traffic situation and post a comment! Thanks.
Beth
