FAIRVIEW—After conducting a traffic study, the Fairview City Council decided to remove the stop signs on 300 South in Fairview.
At a meeting last month, the council accepted a plan prepared by Councilman Matt Sorensen and Police Chief Steve Gray showing where traffic signs should be placed in town and where others should be removed.
But some residents who appeared at a city council meeting last Thursday, April 15, were not happpy about the action, and one of them, Brian Howarth, asked the council to put in speed humps in lieu of the signs.
“The city needs to have something in place,” he said.
He added that a resident on 300 South would donate material to put speed bumps in.
A speed hump is a structure that extends across part of a road but not the whole road. A speed hump is not as high as a speed bump.
Howarth, who said he has been a longtime resident on the road, said, “That road is a raceway.”
“I was pretty ticked off to find out that they (the signs) were removed—and not only were they removed but removed on a holiday weekend,” he said.
“When you have kids driving past your house at 60 miles per hour, that becomes an issue,” he said.
Howarth called dispatch on April 4 after an eastbound truck missed him by 2 feet, he said.
“I had to jump up,” he said, asking, “What happens if a little kid jumps out there?”
Howarth said that the city would be liable.
He pointed out that Ron Cox of Cox Automotive complained about speeders, and the council addressed the problem. Howarth wondered if the council was putting a business ahead of people.
“We understand your concerns,” Mayor Cliff Wheeler responded before an audience of 12. “We’ve talked about speed bumps before. I don’t know what the answer is.”
“There is a difference between a speed hump and a speed bump,” Howarth said, recommending that three or four speed humps be put on 300 South.
He said, “I guarantee [the issue] is not going way.”
Councilman Matt Sorensen said, “We didn’t brush it off” and the decision was “not done hastily.”
“I want the citizens to know that we put a lot of discussion into it,” he said. He said that he told Fairview Police Chief Steve Gray that if a stop sign next to his residence was removed, he would be angry. He also said that some people on 300 South wanted the stop signs removed.
Speaking to a possible resolution, he said he didn’t know if speed bumps or dips were the answer.
Councilman Brad Welch said, “Nobody here is saying that we can’t look into speed bumps. We are just saying that we did a study.”
Jeff Jarman, who said he has lived on the street for years, acknowledged that stop signs didn’t solve all the problems, but said that there are “things that can be done.”
“The fact that the signs are just gone and the carpet has been pulled from beneath [300 South residents]” is a problem, he said.
“We’re worried about our grandkids; we’re worried about our kids,” he said, adding that others are worried about their dogs.
Wheeler then cut off Jarman before asking the council if it wanted to follow Howarth’s request to look into speed humps.
Councilman Mike MacKay asked Gray for the fastest speed that someone has gone on the road.
“Forty-three [miles per hour],” Gray said, adding, “You have to understand” that people slow down when seeing a cop.
Resident Carrie Oldroyd said that someone was going 67 miles per hour, according to a meter that Oldroyd could see.
MacKay pointed out that the first speed limit sign you see is two-and-a-half blocks into the street and on weekends, there is a lot of traffic.
“We need to be able to slow people somehow because someone is going to get hurt,” he said.
Wheeler asked the concerned residents for a month to work on the issue.
