Monday, Jan. 17, 2005 | 10:37 a.m.
Clark County Public Works officials on Tuesday will propose a three-part plan to boost safety at four-way intersections controlled by stop signs, an issue that was in the local spotlight last year after a child was struck by a motorist and killed at one of those intersections.
John Toth, Public Works manager for traffic management, said the plan, if approved by Clark County commissioners, will focus on education for drivers, engineering of the roadways and enforcement of traffic laws by Metro Police.
The effort would cost as much as $1 million annually, according to the proposal.
The county has 88 four-way intersections controlled by stop signs in its jurisdiction.
Education would include the release of three public service announcements, one of them in Spanish, each focusing on the three main causes of traffic collisions: driving under the influence, failure to yield and distracted driving. Additionally, Metro would re-release some of its older public service announcements.
The announcements would be aired on Cox cable's Channel 4, and the department would ask the commercial stations also to broadcast the announcements, Toth said.
The enforcement effort would continue Metro's "traffic initiative program" that targeted specific intersections. Toth said the program targeted 10 intersections last year and contributed to a 34 percent reduction in accidents at the intersections.
Toth said computer programs will identify those with a relatively high number of accidents. The police can then respond quickly to an emerging problem, he said.
Metro Lt. Wayne Petersen said the traffic initiative program would continue next year, with a half-dozen or more officers working targeted intersections in an effort that, police believe, pays off not just at the specific areas being worked by police but also as a general reminder to drive safely elsewhere.
Public Works also will re-engineer traffic controls at intersections that show a significant number of collisions, particularly those that are due to drivers reporting that they failed to see a stop sign.
"At a minimum what you will find is more red flashers on stop signs," Toth said.
Other engineering efforts would include yellow flashing warning lights on "stop ahead" signs, installing warning flags on the same signs, installing additional "stop ahead" signs at intersection approaches, installing oversized stop signs or prohibiting on-street parking within 100 feet of an intersection.
Public Works already uses a federally sanctioned method of identifying which intersections warrant traffic lights, but Toth said his department will recommend an additional analysis of each kind of control system at four-way stops in an effort to determine which kind of control measure is appropriate for which intersections.
The board could ask for more aggressive measures, including full traffic signals at each intersection, Toth said.
Public Works spokesman Bobby Shelton said there are 40 to 50 intersections in the county now controlled by stop signs that would, under the federal guidelines, potentially qualify for full traffic lights. The problem for the department in installing the lights is primarily cost, he said.
"We don't have that much money up front to do that," Shelton said. Installing a traffic light requires a bidding, design and installation process that can take two years or more, he added.
A full traffic signal can cost $250,000 or more per intersection, Shelton said, depending on the size and design requirements.
Toth said some of the intermediate engineering steps range from relatively cheap to almost as costly as a full traffic signal.
The department is analyzing the effectiveness of three kinds of warning lights to augment existing stop signs, he said. Solar-powered flashing warning lights are the cheapest and can be installed relatively quickly. Installation on an intersection can cost the county a minimum of $7,200 for lights on four stop signs, but the price can double at larger intersections with up to eight stop signs.
Similar "hard-wired" lights with electric lines can cost $25,300 for a simple four-way intersections, and warning lights that are tripped by approaching traffic can cost more than $147,000, Toth said.
"You're almost at (the cost of) a traffic signal at that point," he said. "It can be an expensive proposition."
The county would evaluate the two basic types of warnings -- continuously flashing versus tripped by approaching traffic -- for at least a year at 12 intersections under the Public Works proposal.
Toth said the county would install flashing warnings when the accident rate in an intersection exceeds 0.6 accidents attributed to a failure to yield or stop per million vehicles entering an intersection, or when an intersection has sufficient width for three or more entering lanes.
The engineering aspect of traffic control issues came under scrutiny after the death of 7-year-old Debbie Blinder in September. Blinder was killed after the car she was in was hit by a woman who allegedly ran a stop sign at Desert Inn Road and Hualapai Way.
Sharon Rapstad, the 57-year-old SUV driver, pleaded not guilty last month to misdemeanor charges of running the stop sign.
The Blinder family criticized the county for not installing a full traffic signal at the intersection. After the accident, the department installed flashing warning lights, and started the design process for full traffic signals at the intersection.
Both Metro and Public Works officials have said that the most important element in curbing such accidents is getting people to obey the traffic controls that are in place.
A month after Debbie Blinder died, an SUV sped through an intersection at Hualapai and Sahara Avenue that has a complete traffic signal system. The SUV hit a vehicle and killed two of the three passengers, Toth noted. The signal-controlled intersection is clearly visible from a mile away, he added.
Petersen, with Metro, agreed that driver behavior is the major problem.
"If we could dedicate a squad to enforcement, we can impact driving behavior and affect the number of deaths and injuries," Petersen said. "The goal is not to see how many citations we can write. The goal is to impact driver behavior."
A sales tax increase to be considered this year by the Legislature could allow Metro to add as many as 35 officers to traffic enforcement, Petersen said.
"Right now, we have limited resources to dedicate to enforcement," he said. "If we can get the increase of 35 officers over the next year and half, we can have a substantial impact on driver behavior."
Last year, Metro saw 145 fatalities on the roads in its jurisdiction, Petersen said, a record number roughly equivalent to the number of homicides.
Petersen said he sees evidence of worsening driving habits.
"There are more people here, more people on the roadways, and people get impatient and take unnecessary chances," he said. "Driving is probably the single most dangerous thing most of us do. People don't give driving the respect that they need to."
archive
