STOP Right There – Hot Pursuit of a STOP Sign

Back on July 8th, a dozen families in the Bradford Park signed and sent a letter to Mayor Otis requesting Rye install stop signs at the intersection of Bradford Avenue and Florence Avenue making what is now a two-way stop into a four-way stop. There are many small children in the neighborhood and cars come down Bradford (from the Post Road) at high speed and–without slowing down–make the turn onto Florence. It is an unsafe environment for any pedestrian and especially our children.

I though it might be constructive to record the various interactions with the City to see what it takes, how long it takes and who you need to call and see to have a stop sign installed.

To date, here is the series of events.

• July 8-9 2006: After speaking of the shared concern with neighbors, a letter is written on the 8th and circulated and the 8th and 9th. A dozen families in Bradford Park sign the letter.
• July 9th: I email and mail the letter to Mayor Otis.
• @ July 12th: I get a call from Paul Shew, City Manager. Paul is nice as can be, asks a few friendly questions and says the letter and request will be forwarded to the Traffic and Transit Committee. I will hear from them. They are all volunteers, but this being Rye (City of Overachievers), Paul reports the head of our traffic committee is, you got it, a traffic engineer. I am so excited (and pleasantly stunned) that our letter got s response so quickly, I completely forget to ask for names, numbers, process, meetings, to-dos, etc.
• July 12th-August 3rd: Complete radio silence. Nothing. Nada.
• August 4th: I call the City Manager’s office and ask to speak with Paul Shew. He is not available. I explain what I am looking for and the helpful woman tells me it is likely that the Traffic and Transit Committee (the "TNT"- my acronym not hers) probably does not meet in the summer. And Paul is not the TNT go-to guy, but I need to speak with Scott Pickup, Assistant City Manager, who is out and returning Monday. After both of us look on the City web site, we see the meeting schedule for the TNT.

No big surprises, but it has already occurred to me we could save some time if a couple of us could just chip in and buy a couple Stop Signs and install them ourselves. (Just kidding! News Flash: Bradford Park Vigilante Stop Sign Installers Grind Neighborhood to a Halt).

I’ll Yield to the process and let you know when I get a Green Light.