The Festus City Council voted unanimously Monday to add a stop sign at the intersection of North Third and North Mill streets. The three-way intersection already has two stop signs.
Public Works director Michael Christopher said the new stop sign is being added to improve safety for pedestrians crossing North Mill Street between the Festus Fire Station parking lot, 212 N. Mill St., and Olympia Gymnastics, 215 N. Mill St. People park on the fire station lot and cross the street with their children to go to Olympia Gymnastics, according to a traffic study the city commissioned.
The pedestrian crossing will be moved to the North Second and North Mill Street intersection, a four-way stop, Christopher said.
The new stop sign will be installed on North Third Street where it meets North Mill. The other two stop signs are on North Mill, one on the northbound side and one on the southbound side. Houses line the west side of North Mill at the intersection.
Christopher said the traffic study indicated that drivers find themselves in dangerous situations when turning from westbound Third onto southbound North Mill and encountering pedestrians.
“From the aspect of pedestrian safety, it was felt that the uncontrolled left and right onto North Mill was hard for pedestrians who would be there because of (the vehicle) momentum,” he said.
The stop sign likely will not be installed until the first week of September because of an ongoing road improvement project on North Mill, Christopher said.
Jokerst Paving & Contracting of Festus is nearing completion of the $667,314.40 North Mill road improvement project that include milling and repaving the road, as well as some curb and stormwater work and other improvements.
“They’ve got at least two weeks of work left right now,” Christopher said. “I wanted to make sure that Mill Street was totally complete and the pedestrian crossing could be striped."
Jokerst already has completed a related $124,043.90 project to repair the retaining wall at 119 N. Mill St.