Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
By this time next year, city officials expect they will have put an end to the safety hazard of uncontrolled intersections in Shawano.
The Department of Public Works will purchase and install 132 yield and stop signs over the course of the next 12 months at a cost of $9,240.
Public Works Coordinator Eddie Sheppard said concerns have been raised not just by residents, but also by the Police Department about the potential traffic dangers of uncontrolled intersections.
Police were unable to provide statistics for accidents that have occurred at those intersections, but Sheppard said police have told the DPW and city’s field committee that there have been “some close calls.”
Sheppard said most motorists driving through an intersection will assume that if their direction of travel isn’t controlled, cross-traffic at the intersection probably is.
“So everybody assumes they have the right-of-way,” Sheppard said.
Sheppard said the DPW budgets for sign purchases each year and will start phasing in the purchases with this year’s budget and will see what’s still needed as the 2017 budget is drafted.
The plan is to begin sign installations in the northwest corner of the city and move to the south over the course of the next 12 months.
Traffic volume will determine whether stop signs or just yield signs are needed.
The plan calls for signs to be installed in at least two directions at four-way intersections, either north-south or east-west, and at least one sign at three-way uncontrolled intersections.
Sheppard said most of Shawano’s uncontrolled intersections are located in the older part of the city, north of Lieg Avenue and south of Green Bay Street, and west of Main Street to the river.
The DPW had to overcome one roadblock in moving forward with its plan — a city ordinance on the books that would have required the Common Council to approve control sign changes at each and every one of the intersections.
The council resolved that issue last week, approving an ordinance change that allowed those decisions to be made at the discretion of the DPW and police chief.