There’s a stop sign in Airdrie that few people seem willing to stop for.
The sign is so reviled by drivers who’ve been through the intersection that a petition calling for its removal has caught fire.
Marcus Elford started the petition after he got pulled over by Airdrie RCMP and handed a $388 ticket for failing to stop. He’s fighting the ticket, arguing the sign serves no purpose and is actually dangerous to both drivers and pedestrians.
“The stop sign makes no sense” said Elford.
“A stop sign is for a purpose, you stop to let somebody else go, or you stop to merge into traffic properly, or something like that, but there’s no purpose for this stop sign.”
Elford started the online petition Monday calling for the sign to be moved, or removed.
“This needs to be fixed, this is stupid and bad dangerous,” he said.
“It should be a yield or a merge.”
The stop sign he’s referring to is at the southern access from Cooperstown Town Mall onto 40th Avenue.
“As motorists leave the parking lot and cross the public sidewalk, the stop sign is still 15 metres away, down a hill. That seems to confuse some motorists. The law requires drivers to stop within three metres of a stop sign. The fine for failing to do so is $338 plus three demerit points.
A CTV crew spent just over three hours watching the intersection Tuesday and fewer than one-in-10 drivers properly passed through the stop zone.
The City of Airdrie says the stop sign has been at this location for over a year and the city’s community infrastructure director Lorne Stevens maintains it is properly placed for the type of intersection it controls.
“What we have here is an exit from a commercial area that is merging in a right turn with a major arterial roadway, that being 40th Avenue,” said Stevens.
“So some of the design elements at the stop sign is to prevent conflicts, potential weaving conflicts with traffic pulling out of the commerical area onto 40th (Avenue).”
Despite that, Stevens says concerned residents do have a recourse, through the city’s Traffic Advisory Committee, which he says has the power to review and amend signage placement.
Elford set a goal of 500 signatures in the online petition before he would take it to the advisory committee. The petition surpassed that number at about 6 p.m. Tuesday, just over 24 hours after it was launched.
