City will add a host of stops signs in high school neighborhoods
An aerial view of the neighborhood north of the high school.
By CHRIS PETERSON
Hungry Horse News
The neighborhood between the Columbia Falls High School and U.S. Highway 2 will soon see more stop signs at intersections – a lot more stop signs.
Columbia Falls Police Chief Clint Peters told city council last week that the city should install 38 more stop signs in the blocks between Fourth Avenue West and 12th Avenue West.
The recommendation comes after the police department did a warrant study of the neighborhood, determining that many of the intersections were uncontrolled, meaning they didn’t have a stop sign at all.
The issue came to a head earlier this month, when neighbors complained about young drivers racing down 10th Avenue West, as it’s a clear shot from the high school to the Highway. There’s a dip in the road, not a big one, but they were still able to get their rigs airborne.
Council concurred with Peters that something needed to be done, so they gave the green light to the stop signs. Peters noted that there are a lot of signs, so it could take a while to get them all installed, as city public works crews will have to put them in. The hope is to get about half of them in before school starts.
The idea behind the signs is to stop a run of more than two blocks.
Some notable intersections will see four-way stop signs: Eighth Avenue West and 12th Street West, Seventh Avenue West and 12th Street West and 10th Avenue West and 11th Street West will see four-way stop signs.
Peters noted the bad driving as of late isn’t all on young drivers. It’s also from parents picking up and dropping off kids at school. Traffic overall is also up, even though school enrollment hasn’t gone up much.
“I feel like we have a larger number of vehicles than we’ve had in the past,” Peters said.