By Megann Horstead | For The Bugle
sweditor@buglenewspapers.com
@JolietILNews
With reported 17 accidents at Theodore Street and Great Ridge Avenue between January 2013 and February 2016, councilwoman Jan Hallums-Quillman told the Joliet City Council March 1 that a stop sign is needed at the intersection to reduce traffic-related incidents.
The public service committee did not recommend the item at its Feb. 29 meeting, with members saying they did not feel the situation meet the criteria for a new stop sign.
Quillman said she found the committee’s response to the matter puzzling and conducted additional research on the matter. According to state and federal statutes, a crash problem is indicated by five or more cases in a 12-month period at a multiway stop installation.
After reviewing the laws, Quillman argued that the number of traffic accidents at the intersection certainly make a good case for further city council action. Quillman said she initially started to back the idea that a multi-way stop sign should be installed on a 1- to 2-year trial basis and the speed limit be reduced after seeing an email with a suggestion made by a concerned resident.
“It’s a matter of public safety and not only that, but it’s our job to protect our citizens when they come to us for help,” Quillman said. “This is their neighborhood; they live there.”
Quillman, an at-large councilwoman who serves on the public safety committee, said the last traffic study for the area was done in 2013 and urged the city council to act before it’s too late.
“Why do we have to keep doing traffic studies until somebody gets killed,” she asked.
Because Joliet is a home-rule city, the stop sign proposal can be imposed at any time should the council agree that change is warranted and the city manager makes the necessary arrangements for the placement of a stop sign.
Councilman Jim McFarland said any additional action on the issue would be taken by the public service committee, adding that there was a discrepancy in the traffic study presented to them.
“Unfortunately, the staff did not obtain all the documents that basically specified that certain areas within the geographic region that we’re discussing took place,” he said. “Staff did go back and obtain all the police reports and did an analysis. They came back to committee yesterday. Again, they [said] there is no support for the four-way stop.”
McFarland said the committee does not see the stop sign as a necessity, adding that the city will address the issue by increasing police presence and speed limit signage.
Councilman Larry Hug said he would like to see engineers compile other studies on similar intersections with smaller residential streets, such as Essington and Larkin, to help the city make a comparison and address Quillman’s concern. He said the issue requires greater caution in the event the city finds and disagrees with the guidelines set by state and local governments, which he said do not warrant the stop sign’s necessity.
“If we go outside the guidelines set by the federal department of transportation over the warrants on this… we basically have said all the research information the federal government has done, we’re going to push it aside as home rule, which makes us responsible for any action and increasingly responsible for liability,” Hug said. “We’re creating kind of arbitrarily our own warrants, and we don’t have the federal warrants or the already established federal warrants to fall back so that’s what I’m referring to as why I want a comparison with other similar intersections on our roads throughout the city.”
The issue regarding the potential installation of a stop sign at the intersection of Great Ridge Avenue and Theodor Street will return to the public service committee at a later date.