Poor traffic control in Mena, AR

[bugo]

There are several intersections in Mena, Arkansas that have the stop signs in some odd and unsafe places. The first example is at the intersection of Magnolia/Sutherland/9th in the north part of town:



There are stop signs on Magnolia in both directions and on 9th Street. There is no stop sign on eastbound Sutherland. Most of the traffic on EB Sutherland continues east on Magnolia. There really should be a stop sign on Sutherland.

Here is an image of the intersection of Janssen/Pickering/Race Track Road:



There is a stop sign on SB Race Track and one on NE bound Janssen. Janssen goes down a steep hill and the stop sign is at the bottom of the hill. There should be a stop sign on Pickering and no stop signs at the other two points. The only reason I can see that they did it this way is because of the railroad crossing and they didn't want cars getting stuck on the tracks, even though there are several places in town with stop signs just past railroad crossings. Coming down the hill can be dangerous, especially if you're not familiar with the area.

What do the professionals think?

[Brian556]

Top one:
Without knowledge of traffic patterns, it looks to me like the didn't put one for Sutherland Av simply because it would be hard to see. I would recommend installing a skinny island so that you could have one on both sides. You could put one on the left side instead of building a island, but I prefer the island method.

Second one:
They may be worried about trucks esp getting caught on the crossing. I say that because of the Walmart near the crossing. Since I don't agree with giving right of way to traffic that typically would not have it, and since it is counter-intuitive, I would go with a 3-way stop. That should give trucks enough time to get off the tracks, and with cross traffic stopping, they could run the stop sign with no ill effects if it was deemed necessary.

[bugo]

It would be easy to see a stop sign on EB Sutherland. When I drive through there, I slow down to a crawl because I don't trust other drivers.

Trucks usually don't follow Pickering when they're leaving Walmart. Walmart is on US 59/71 and 99.9% of trucks go that way. There's a sharp curve just east of the tracks and I don't know that a big truck could even make the corner.