Crothersville Town Council proposes four-way stop

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CROTHERSVILLE

A four-way stop has been suggested on a heavily traveled street in Crothersville.

During a meeting Monday night, the town council unanimously voted to have an ordinance drafted to change the intersection of Main and Kovener streets from a two-way stop to a four-way stop. Currently, only traffic traveling on Kovener Street has to stop.

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The change was proposed by Councilman Jason Hillenburg, who lives near the intersection.

An increase of traffic coming from the Crothersville Industrial Park and a business on the outskirts of town led to his proposal. The speed limit is 30 mph, but Hillenburg said police officers have observed traffic in the area and wound up writing multiple speeding tickets.

“Frequently, there is nobody that drives 30 mph on that stretch. Most people do their best to go from Bethany Road to the stop sign by the German cross as fast as they can,” he said.

In the yards of his home and his neighbors, there typically are several children playing, Hillenburg said.

“It’s a residential street that has, I’m guessing, 50 to 100 semis on it daily, kids riding bikes,” he said. “(Semi drivers) are grabbing gears getting down to the next stop sign as quick as they can.”

Councilman Jamy Greathouse asked if there’s a way to reroute the trucks to keep them off of the town streets, but council President Danieta Foster said they can’t make turns at any of the intersections other than the route they are taking. She said some trucks while making a turn off of Kovener Street have knocked the stop sign down, and they aren’t supposed to be on that street.

Brad Bender with FPBH Inc. said he isn’t sure about changing to a four-way stop because it doesn’t take the place of motorists who are speeding.

“Because what happens is they still just jackrabbit from one intersection to the next, and sometimes, it’s worse because they start running the four-way stop or rolling through it, so just bear that in mind,” he told the council.

“It doesn’t always do what you want it to do,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s almost counterproductive because it takes the people that have been driving through that speed limit, all of a sudden, they start rolling through and not paying any attention.”

Greathouse asked Bender if he could suggest any alternatives.

“Unfortunately, there are not,” Bender said. “This question comes up so often. People want to do speed bumps, they want to do four-way stops. It just doesn’t solve the problem. If you want to get into all kinds of traffic calming issues, it’s a whole other subject. If you create a four-way stop every block, you know what happens — people never stop. Stop signs don’t solve all of the problems.”

Foster said speed bumps wouldn’t work because they would create issues during the winter while plowing snow off of streets.

“You don’t want to put a speed bump on a traveled way like what’s on your road inventory because that creates all kinds of issues,” Bender said. “On an alley or something like that, that makes sense, but don’t start putting them out on traveled ways. It will cause more problems not just with plowing.”

Hillenburg made the motion to have town attorney Jeff Lorenzo draft an ordinance to change the intersection to a four-way stop.

The first reading will be during the next council meeting at 6 p.m. July 7 at the town hall. If the vote passes, it will require a second and final reading.

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