Stop signs....the bane continues

Coming home from a meeting with an Israel expert in the Loop Friday afternoon, my commute reminded me once again how the usage of stop signs in Chicago has gone so horribly wrong. There are a number of streets that go under train tracks--either light rail (CTA elevated) or heavy rail (Metra). On some of these streets, like Pratt Boulevard and Morse Avenue, the underpass has two stop signs: one just before the underpass, and one at the end of the underpass, about 20 feet from the first. Who has time to stop twice? The stop signs are there to "protect" streets that run alongside the tracks. Maybe the stop signs those streets have for the major through street might be sufficient? But no. Through traffic must screech to a halt on the off-chance that someone might be coming from the side streets--which already have stop signs. Outrageous.

Stop signs: the debate continues

A couple of friends begged me to go on the stop-sign warpath again. So here we go.

There are a number of members of Young Israel of West Rogers Park who love the new stop sign on Touhy at Washtenaw, right next to the shul. I asked one of them, "J.D.," "What if there were stop signs on Touhy at Campbell, Francisco and Albany?" That would mean Touhy Avenue would have traffic controls--either a stop sign or traffic light--at every intersection from Western to Kedzie, a one-mile stretch:
Campbell: No current stop sign.
Rockwell: traffic light.
Washtenaw: new stop sign (installed at the alderman's direction in November, 2008.)
California: traffic light.
Francisco: residents have begged the alderman for a stop sign here for years. Francisco does not run through here; there is a townhome development entrance on the north side of this intersection. No current stop sign.
Sacramento: traffic light.
Albany: a stop sign was here for about a month, in January, 2008. Bowing to pressure, the alderman ended up removing it either because people were disobeying it, or it was causing accidents. Albany is where eastbound traffic narrows from two lanes to one.
Kedzie: traffic light.

J.D. said he thought stop signs at the three intersections that currently have none would be "overkill," in his words. Well, that's the whole point. Every neighborhood resident has his own "favorite stop sign," whether it exists or not. If it doesn't yet exist, you can be sure there are some busybodies who have plenty of time to start petitions and lobby the alderman to install a stop sign. With the new stop sign at Washtenaw, the residents near Campbell, Francisco and Albany will have fresh ammunition for their arguments for their own stop signs. To you, a new stop sign may be just a few seconds a day. But as I previously mentioned, the cumulative effect of a single stop sign is thousands of dollars in wasted time, fuel, and vehicular wear-and-tear. Furthermore, a new stop sign rarely stands alone. More often than not, nearby intersections suffer the bane of the four-way stop as well.