Manchester aldermen voted this week to send a request for an all-way stop with flashing lights at a busy Ward 1 intersection - despite a report from the city’s traffic engineer that the area doesn’t meet the necessary criteria - back to committee for more discussion.
Graphic Courtesy Manchester Public Works Department
Manchester aldermen voted this week to send a request for an all-way stop with flashing lights at a busy Ward 1 intersection - despite a report from the city’s traffic engineer that the area doesn’t meet the necessary criteria - back to committee for more discussion.
Graphic Courtesy Manchester Public Works Department
Manchester aldermen voted this week to send a request for an all-way stop with flashing lights at a busy Ward 1 intersection — despite a report from the city’s traffic engineer that the area doesn’t meet the necessary criteria — back to committee for more discussion.
The request appeared on the consent agenda for Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.
City traffic engineer Kristen Clarke said the public works department received a request from Ward 1 Alderman Chris Morgan for an all-way stop with vehicle-activated flashing stop signs at the intersection of Campbell Street and Union Street in Ward 1.
The equipment carries a price tag of around $16,000, Clarke reported, and is not covered under the department’s operational budget.
Striping modifications also would be required before installation, which could be handled by traffic staff and equipment, in addition to the installation of the flashing stop signs, Clarke told aldermen.
At Tuesday night’s meeting, Morgan asked that the item be pulled from the consent agenda, then made a motion to send it back to committee.
“Based on the merits of my conversations with residents in my ward -– most are for this, but some are against -– I feel it is best to send it back to committee so that I can talk to more constituents and provide further study on the best course of action,” Morgan said Wednesday. “Something needs to be done to curb the speeding on Union Street and I look forward to getting as much feedback from our ward residents on the best possible solution, but everyone should know we will do something.
“I plan to walk door to door in the next coming weeks to talk to constituents and ask them what they would like to see happen.”
The intersection of Union Street and Campbell Street is a T-intersection about one mile west of the Interstate 93 Exit 9 interchange. Union Street provides access to residential single-family, medium-density housing to the north of the intersection, and single-family, high-density housing to the south.
The speed limit on both roadways is 30 mph.
Traffic conditions, accident history and physical characteristics of a location are looked at to determine the necessity for signage or signal installation, with installation of multi-way stops or signalization only considered if specific thresholds outlined in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) are achieved.
According to Clarke, none of the criteria for an all-way stop at that intersection were met.
“The most prevalent safety issue identified on (the) Union Street corridor was vehicles exceeding the posted speed limit, with 82.5% of vehicles in the study period exceeding the posted speed limit of 30 mph, and speed enforcement was recommended at that time,” Clarke wrote in a memo to aldermen. “Unwarranted stop signs can create new safety problems at intersections, including drivers driving faster between intersections to save time, increase of rear-end accidents, disobedience of the stop signs, and an increase in noise from acceleration and deceleration of vehicles.
“There are also potential safety concerns when stop signs are used for speed control if side street traffic is expecting the main line to stop and someone at a high rate of speed on the main line goes through the stop sign.”
Clarke told members of the aldermanic Committee on Public Safety, Health and Traffic a formal traffic study was done on the intersection in 2019, at the request of former Ward 1 Alderman Kevin Cavanaugh.
“The study showed that none of the warrant criteria was met,” Clarke said. “The warrant is based on crash history and traffic volume. We checked current traffic volume and it was similar to what it was in 2019. It is anticipated that the warrant criteria is still not met today.”
