Weeks after exchanging several Uptown stoplights for stop signs, Martinsville officials have opted to revert back to lights.
“The City of Martinsville will be reactivating all stop lights in Uptown Martinsville that were changed to stop signs last month,” reads an official message from the city.
The decision to emphasize stop signs over stoplights was in an effort to make Martinsville’s Uptown area more pedestrian-friendly. The idea was that motorists would stop at intersections, making it easier for pedestrians to navigate the district. The change was also intended to slow down vehicles by requiring frequent stops.
The Martinsville City Council voted to make the change in October. In March, the city installed stop signs at five intersections: Moss Street and West Church Street, Bridge Street and East Church Street, East Church Street and Walnut Street, East Church Street and Broad Street, and West Main Street and Wall Street.
But residents soon began to lodge complaints, including concerns that not all motorists were stopping at the signs, and that visibility was low at some intersections due to street-side traffic, vegetation and other obstacles.
During its first April meeting, the city council discussed these concerns and suggested some stopgap measures, such as an increased police presence. The council agreed to talk more in depth about the issue at a later meeting.
That never happened. On Monday, City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides made the decision to revert to stoplights.
“Sometimes when you make a decision and it’s not working, you just need to fix it,” Ferrell-Benavides said.
Both Ferrell-Benavides and Public Works Director Greg Maggard cited complaints from the public as a primary reason behind changing back to stoplights.
Ferrell-Benavides said her own observations coincided with those made by residents who felt that not all motorists adhered to the signs.
“As people were complaining I decided to sit there a couple of times just to observe,” she said. “Not everyone stops at … stop signs.”
The decision to revert to lights does not close the books on the original effort to make the Uptown area more pedestrian-friendly. On the city’s Facebook page, some users suggested their own solutions.
“Glad this decision has been made,” wrote Tim Byrd. “Perhaps some well placed speed bumps could help those who can’t seem to help themselves.”
Orlando Manautou wrote that the stop signs probably could have worked if there had been a greater police presence enforcing the signs.
Maggard said there are a number of strategies, including different signage, that can be pursued.
“It’s a work in progress at this point,” he said. “I don’t know if that is going to include lights at this point. We’re going to start over from scratch.”
Ferrell-Benavides said that in hindsight, the decision to transition to stop signs was done more hastily than it probably should have been.
“If we are going to do this, we are going to roll it out a little at a time,” Ferrell-Benavides said. “We have so many important things going on in the city; we’re in the budget season. Every day can’t be streetlights.”
She said it’s important that officials make a decision following a longer analysis phase.
“We needed to make more time evaluating,” she said, adding that the original decision in October happened before she took over as city manager. “It makes perfectly good sense to me to put it back as it was and look at it holistically and then make an educated decision.”