Stoplights vs, four-way stops

Janet Imrick

Randolph Hub

ASHEBORO — North Carolina Department of Transportation might remove some stoplights in Asheboro’s downtown district, and the city is pushing back.

The agency said it’s thinking of turning three intersections into four-way stops:

- Church Street at Kivett Street.

- Park Street at Kivett Street.

- Park Street at Sunset Avenue.

“You couldn’t pick a worse place in Asheboro to take the traffic stop away,” Mayor David Smith said at the Jan. 9 city council meeting.

Assistant City Manager Trevor Nuttall asked the council if they would like to take action now or wait for NCDOT to make a firmer decision. As the agency is still in its preliminary investigation, the council chose to wait before raising any formal opposition.

City Manager John Ogburn first told the city council of NCDOT’s proposal at the end of the December meeting. He said Nuttall and City Engineer Michael Leonard are already talking to the NCDOT district supervisor.

Nuttall said they are still several months away from a decision, so the city has time to talk with transportation officials and the public. If NCDOT does move forward, the city council could sign a resolution against it.

Nuttall shared the preliminary data at the January meeting. NCDOT looked at vehicular volume, interruption of continuous traffic and peak hour delays. Their report ruled that the Park at Kivett and Church at Kivett intersections did not meet any of the warrants for stoplights, and the Park at Sunset intersection only satisfied one of the warrants for peak hours.

The reports showed that NCDOT did not evaluate pedestrian traffic, school crossings, crash experiences, signal coordination and grade crossings.

Mayor Pro Tem Walker Moffitt said he believes NCDOT is looking to shift costs to Asheboro if they want to preserve those light signals. “Nobody’s taking the lights out,” he said. “The underlying issue is who pays to keep it up.”

Moffitt criticized the preliminary data for not looking at other factors beyond traffic volume. “I see here relative site distance, grade elevations. Kivett and Church, they flunk that mightily. All of them do,” he said. “With existing utilities in the way, you just can’t see around the corner.”

“My office is on Kivett. I travel that road, and I can tell you it can be like Russian roulette with those lights.” Council member Joseph Trogdon, Jr. said. “You got the fire department, you got the school, you got Memorial Park in the summer, and the ABC store flow line going that way. Those apartments, and the apartments coming in. There’s no justifiable reason to consider that.”

Council member Bill McCaskill brought up pedestrian safety. “Church Street is a really heavy pedestrian street,” he said. “It’s the high school traffic, too. At the end of school, they’re coming up Church Street.”

An Asheboro resident, Susie Scott, shared her own criticism during the public comment period. While living on Kivett Street for 20 years, she said she’s seen children walk to Loflin Elementary School on their own.

“Those traffic lights are at places where there have been a history of wrecks,” Scott said. “I’m worried that if you go to all stops, you’re going to have people running those stop signs, and I’m especially concerned about small kids who don’t know they can’t be seen.”

Ogburn said he will alert Asheboro Schools Superintendent Aaron Woody of the proposal.

Smith compared it to the council’s decision last year to swap out aging lights for stop signs at city-owned intersections along Worth, Elm and Main. “Those interchanges are all flat and have good sight lines,” he said.

At the end of the meeting, Smith asked for an update on another downtown light issue. More than a dozen fixtures along Sunset Avenue have stopped working.

Facilities Director Jimmy Cagle said Duke Energy has turned over streetlight manufacturing to the company Mastec. His staff have placed an order for Mastec to build new fixtures with the same architectural look.

4-way stop goes into effect on Worth & Main

Even as the City Council debates what to do about potential changes in three busy intersections in Asheboro, the first transition from stoplights to four-way stops in three other interchanges has begun.

The Worth Street and Main Street intersection has been provisionally converted to an all-way stop and will be evaluated for operational effectiveness over the next several weeks. 

The city said this decision to analyze the intersection as an all-way stop was made after reviewing traffic data and weighing the considerable cost to replace the out-of-date signal, which is estimated to exceed $70,000.

City personnel will be monitor the intersection to ensure it functions safely. The conversion will be made permanent at a later date if no concerns are identified. Two other city-maintained intersections (Elm and Worth and Brewer and Elm) will be studied for similar reasons in the next several weeks.

Rules for a 4-way stop

1. The first vehicle at the intersection has the right of way.

2. When two or more vehicles reach an intersection at the same time, the vehicle to the right has the right of way and may go straight or, if legal and after signaling, turn left or right.

3. When two facing vehicles approach an intersection simultaneously, both drivers can move straight ahead or turn right. If one driver is going straight while the other wants to turn left, the driver who wants to turn left must yield.

4. Even with the right of way, drivers should remember to use appropriate turn signals and watch for pedestrians and other vehicles.