Council splits on Lincoln stop sign

MARENGO — In a split vote, the Marengo City Council declined to put stop signs on Lincoln Avenue at Main Street.

City officials had proposed making vehicles on Lincoln Avenue stop because of near misses, collisions and a fatality at the intersection.

Council members Travis Schlabach and Karen Wayson-Kisling voted against the measure during the March 26 meeting, and council members John Hinshaw and Jenni Olson voted in favor.

Councilman Bill Kreis was absent.

During a public hearing on the resolution, resident Dan Slaymaker said the fatality, according to the Iowa Department of Transportation report, was a woman in her 90s who was on her way to the hospital at the time of the accident and died 25 days later.

The accident didn’t cause the death, Slaymaker argued.

Marengo Police Chief Ben Gray said the woman had a broken sternum, caused by a crash, which may have contributed to her death. A stop sign, though it can’t be erected for the purpose of slowing traffic, will have that effect and will lessen the severity of collisions there, he said.

Slaymaker said he’s lived on that block all his life. The intersection has a good sight line and not a lot of traffic, he said.

“I would not be opposed to a yield sign,” said Slaymaker, but he doesn’t see a need to stop at the intersection.

“I drive that intersection six times a day,” Slaymaker said, and he rarely meets traffic there.

Two other residents also objected to the stop sign during the public hearing.

“It’s not a horrible intersection,” said Slaymaker.

Most accidents aren’t reportable to the DOT, said Gray, so many minor accidents that occur there won’t show up on the DOT’s website.

City Administrator Karla Marck said someone had asked the city to put a stop sign there because of all the near-misses.

“I don’t see the necessity,” said Schlabach. Many streets that cross Main Street do not stop, he said.

Schlabach said people have told him they didn’t argue about putting a stop sign by the library and on Court Avenue because of the school traffic at those intersection. But they don’t want stop signs everywhere.

Hinshaw said he’d talked to someone that lives near the intersection and wanted a stop sign there years ago. The city didn’t put one up at that time.

Marengo has well over 120 intersections, said Gray, and only 30 have stop signs. That’s not excessive.

That’s a quarter of all intersections, said Schlabach. In his opinion, the city doesn’t have justification to make traffic on Lincoln stop at Main, he said.