Manning Street Stop Sign

In the S&E article Leominster looks to slow down traffic on Manning Ave.

Leominster officials consider placing a stop sign on Manning Ave at the intersection with Mechanic Street as, "the first step in addressing speeding traffic".

Helloooo, you don't use stop signs to control speed.

From the article,

Mazzarella said the law requires people to stop, even though there isn't a sign.

"If you reach an intersection and there is a road in front of you, you have to stop," he said.

Wrong, quoting from Chapter 4 Rules of the Road in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Driver's Manual,

Intersections Not Controlled by Signs or Signals
If you come to an uncontrolled intersection, slow
down, look left and right for oncoming traffic,
and proceed if the way is clear. However,

• You must yield the right-of-way to any vehicle that has entered the intersection from your right or is approaching from your right.
• Look for any traffic approaching from the left. Even though you may have the legal right-of-way, make sure that the other driver is yielding to you before you proceed.

Also quoting the article,

Mechanic Street is very busy, and every motorist who turned onto it from Manning Avenue -- during a span of a few minutes Thursday afternoon -- all stopped.

Please understand, that's the way it supposed to (and does) work. Drivers on Manning Avenue, approaching the intersection, evaluate the situation. They see that they'll be crossing a sidewalk to turn onto Mechanic Street, they note the large building on the right which limits the ability to see pedestrians and vehicles approaching on Mechanic Street and they slow to an approapriate speed and or stop as needed before proceeding.

Based on the content of the article DPW director Patrick LaPointe and Mayor Mazzarella are wrong. They've given no legitimate reason to put up a stop sign at this location. Clearly they don't get it, maybe they should leave traffic engineering to - oh traffic engineers.

Unless the police department can show a history of collisions at Manning Avenue and Mechanic Street that are of a type that can be reduced by forcing traffic on Manning Avenue to stop the Leominster city council should reject this petition.

On a different note from the same article,

Ward 5 City Councilor Richard Marchand called LaPointe's petition "a great idea."

"Manning Avenue has become a cut through for the downtown traffic," he said, referring to drivers who use the street to avoid Monument Square.

Councilor Marchand is wrong on the first count and right on the second. Manning Avenue has become a cut through for drivers to avoid the delays caused by poor planning and engineering of the intersections around monument square.

However it makes more sense to fix the problems on the primary roads in the downtown area instead of treating the symptoms on the alternate routes with inappropriate signs.