Listening to local residents’ urgent pleas for safety, city officials have agreed to establish a four-way stop at the intersection of 12th Avenue Northeast and Sixth Street Northeast.
The Stewartville City Council has unanimously approved a request for the additional stop signs from a group of parents concerned that children weren’t safe getting on or off school buses near the intersection.
Mayor Jimmie-John King and councilpersons Gary Stensrud, Wendy Timm, Dick Uptagrafft and Craig Anderson all agreed that the city should remove the two stop signs that controlled the east-to-west traffic at the intersection of Fifth Street Northeast and 12th Avenue Northeast and relocate those two signs to Sixth Street Northeast and 12th Avenue Northeast to make that intersection a four-way stop.
Several residents from the area wrote letters to the city asking for the four-way stop. Megan and Joshua Schlager, 1306 Lecy Lane Northeast, wrote that at least 20 children who attend Bonner Elementary School or Central Intermediate School wait at the bus stop near 12th Avenue Northeast and Sixth Street Northeast.
“These children come from all four directions to meet the bus,” the Schlagers wrote. “They also have to wait on the road for the bus as there is no sidewalk at this intersection. Please consider our request for a four-way stop to make our neighborhood safe for our children.”
Gina Schatz, 703 12th Avenue Northeast, also wrote to the city, explaining that a 5-year-old was nearly hit by a vehicle in the neighborhood earlier this fall.
“We have over 20 kids at the bus stop who have to line up at the edge of the street,” Schatz wrote…
For more on this story pick up your copy of the Nov. 24 Stewartville STAR.
Mark Peterson
Editor, Stewartville Star