Resident wants multi-way stop signs installed

Published 12:07 pm Saturday, June 8, 2013

A Smallwood subdivision resident wants the city to install multi-way stop signs along Northwood Drive, similar to what was done on Lawson Road in December 2011.

The Washington City Council is scheduled to consider that request during its meeting Monday. John Chenault, who lives on Ellison Drive, made the request.

Chenault wants the multi-way stop signs placed parallel to the multi-way stop signs on Lawson Road, according to a city document.

“On Lawson Road, multi-way stop intersections were created at the only locations along Lawson

where crossroad intersections occurred, with Eden Drive and Dimock Road. … To get the same approximate spacing along Northwood Road, stop signs would need to be placed at Rowan Road and either Blount Place or Bath Circle. It should be noted that none of these intersections constitute a crossroad intersection. The only crossroad intersection along Northwood is where it intersects with Thomas Place,” reads a memorandum from Allen Lewis, the city’s public-works director, to the mayor and council.

A written communication from Chenault to Lewis indicates Chenault believes the multi-way stop signs on Northwood Drive would be effective.

“I have seen the lasting and positive effect they have had on Lawson, because people are less inclined to increase their speed, knowing that a stop sign is just a block or two away,” Chenault wrote. “The affect of issuing speeding tickets only last a short time, and only affects the few individuals cited. Most speeders are not ticketed because, there are no speed traps set up in Smallwood directed at Northwood Drive, and occasional patrolling by our police doesn’t catch the vast majority of speeders. Even large service trucks and trailers, construction trailers and trucks, cement trucks, delivery trucks and even school buses speed on Northwood.”

The council meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday in the Council Chambers in the Municipal Building, 102 E. Second St. To view the council’s agenda for a specific meeting, visit the city’s website at www.washingtonnc.gov, click “Government” then “City Council” heading, then click “Meeting Agendas” on the menu to the right. Then click on the date for the appropriate agenda.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.