STOP Sign – Traffic Committee Report

A huge thanks to Kim Potter, Lynn Halpern and Tim O’Brien who joined me in attending Brian Dempsey’s September 14th Traffic and Transportation meeting to advocate for a four-way stop sign at the intersection of Bradford and Florence Avenues. See an earlier post here.

First, good news. Taxpayer money is not being spent on lavish digs for Rye’s Traffic and Transportation Committee. Dempsey, Assistant City Manager Scott Pickup and their committee have been relegated to a break room table in the subterranian depths of Rye City Hall. The committee was kind enough to take our group at the beginning of their 7:30pm agenda.

And the bad news. This is going to take a while. As of the September 14th meeting, the traffic study (the City is planning to put a traffic counter out on the intersection to measure quanity and speed of traffic) was not complete and not even started. We had thought it was in the works, but apparently our project had been confused with a second project.

We reviewed the letter requesting the stop signs signed by a dozen or so Bradford Park families and looked at pictures of the intersection. A number of alternatives to stop signs were sequentially discussed and "nuked":

• Speed bumps. Apparently the fire department does not like speed bumps (there is only one in Rye–does anyone know where?) because their trucks race over them and their equipment then bounces off the back of the trucks. Not good.
• Curb extensions. The road is either painted or the actual curb is turned in as the driver gets closer to the actual intersection, resulting in vehicle slow down. Actual changes to the curb would be expensive (A cost estimate was not provided).
• Those white fences people put in the middle of the road. These are illegal and only allowed on private roads. Apparently if you keep doing this, Rye will actually take these away from you. Bad resident! Bad!
• Cut brush/bushes at the intersection corners. There is only one corner that is particuarly bad, and no one seemed sure if this would help people slow down or speed up ("Hey, look, it’s clear, step on it…"). The city also said they would let us know the legal set back from the street (apparently it varies from 8 to 12 feet) so we can determine what is public and what is private property.

The committee was not overly enthusiastic about adding stop signs and it is still unclear exactly how one qualifies for one of these. Too many stop signs mean they all get ignored, they say. They also don’t want to encourage children to play in the street (part of our original concern was both adult pedestrians and our children playing and riding bikes). We all keep a pretty close eye on our kids, but we moved to the ‘burbs for a reason…

Scott Pickup did promise to send a letter to the police chief and request increased speed enforcement on Bradford and Florence. I’ve asked Scott for a copy of the letter and will share this when it is provided.

Next Stop? The next Traffic and Transit meeting, Thursday, October 12th below ground at City Hall. Hopefully we will see the speed study and there will be a clearer path for getting these signs installed. If you are a Bradford Park resident and would like to come along, contact us.