XPost: misc.legal, ca.driving, ba.transportation   
   From: scharf.steven@geemail.com   
      
   On 3/8/2014 11:53 PM, David Kaye wrote:   
   > "Liam O'Connor"  wrote   
   >   
   >> On this, I doubt that the neighbors will be of like mind.   
   >> Most people in California are sheep. This isn't a political   
   >> ng, so, I really shouldn't delve deeper.   
   >   
   > Bullshit.  A small group of people lobby their local city or county   
   > politician for a stop sign.  Stop signs are easy political capital because   
   > they're cheap to put up and they gain the vote of the people who wanted the   
   > sign.   
   >   
   > The fact that others in the community don't bother to weigh in on the matter   
   > is because they have enough on their plates already and they tend to ignore   
   > things that don't affect them much.   
      
   I only know of one instance of someone lobbying for a stop sign, and it   
   was my sister. She had to go through the neighborhood and gather the   
   signatures of a majority of the residents before the city would even   
   consider a stop sign. They eventually did put one in. It was to control   
   speeding and to discourage the use of her street as a cut-through to   
   avoid traffic congestion on the major arterial. Eventually the city   
   found another solution involving a one-way street and removed the stop sign.   
      
   Liam faces a tough challenge. Getting a stop sign removed is much harder   
   than getting one installed. I don't remember when those stop signs in   
   Campbell were put in. I would have never gone down that street until the   
   new post office was put in, then I went down it fairly often since I had   
   a P.O. Box there.   
      
   A new business can really screw up existing traffic flows. The Trader   
   Joe's they put in near me has made life hell for residents on   
   surrounding streets. San Jose decided to not allow left turns from   
   westbound Bollinger into the parking lot by putting up a barrier, so now   
   I routinely see vehicles driving in the opposing lanes on Bollinger to   
   make an illegal left. The alternative route involves quite a long detour.   
      
   We had a really good public works director once in Cupertino who   
   understood that stop signs were not the best traffic control solution,   
   especially for situations where there was a traffic issue only at   
   certain parts of the day. He designed and installed automatic gates that   
   closed only during the times when certain neighborhood streets were   
   being used as cut-throughs to avoid traffic congestion. When one was   
   damaged by a sheriff's deputy hitting the gate the city decided to   
   remove the gate completely. They made up a story about it being an   
   illegal device. I called CalTrans, called the former public works   
   director, and talked to the former mayor. All agreed that the device was   
   perfectly legal, but the city was determined to get rid of the gates.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)