Editorial: Partial solution on traffic mess

Published 12:00 am Friday, April 13, 2001

The traffic situation where Bridge Avenue meets Fountain and Clark streets is no doubt a mess.

Friday, April 13, 2001

The traffic situation where Bridge Avenue meets Fountain and Clark streets is no doubt a mess. And especially in days like these, when portions of Main and Front streets are closed, the Bridge-Clark route takes on a whole new importance.

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It’s encouraging that the city plans to shore up the intersection, but it’s also too bad the council didn’t feel it could make a better plan work.

The reaction of residents who’ve seen the two plans is often the same — most seem to favor the scheme that would have moved portions of Fountain and Clark streets to create a clean, four-way intersection controlled by a traffic light. That would make driving those busy roads much more manageable, while also addressing safety issues.

The plan the city voted to adopt is supposed to take care of those safety issues — although it still leaves an intersection of three busy streets with no controlling traffic lights. The other plan seems like it would have been safer.

And the thought of changing traffic patterns by restricting left turns off and onto Fountain Street, like the approved plan does, seems to make the whole situation more of a headache for drivers. With recent development along Fountain Lake and further north on Bridge, as well as increased hosipital traffic on Fountain, it seems like an apparent Band-Aid solution won’t solve the long-term traffic flow issues.

The expense of the four-way intersection is certainly something to be considered — it could be almost a million dollars — and property acquisition may present problems or delays. But it’s our hope that the city only plans its intersection fix as a temporary measure until a better solution can be found and paid for — or at least that it plans to search for good ideas to modify the plan it does hope to adopt.