Annette Hayden Havre Daily News ahayden@havredailynews.com
New stop signs were installed on Second Street at the intersection of Seventh Avenue by the City of Havre this week, at the direction of the Montana Department of Transportation. The action was in response to a traffic safety study previously conducted by MDT at the request of the City Council. “MDT’s report included installing stop signs on the Second Street approach to Seventh Avenue,” said Dave Peterson, City of Havre Public Works director, along with its suggestions for removing some parking along Fifth Avenue. “The signs at Second Street were installed earlier this week and have flags to help people notice the new control. The flags will probably be up for about a month, so people can get used to it.” MDT’s report said the decision to control the intersection of Second Street and Seventh Avenue was partially based on the number of right-angle crashes that occurred, accounting for 60 percent of accidents at the intersection. “Right angle crashes were the predominate crash type at this intersection,” the MDT report said. “This is an uncontrolled intersection. The fact that it is uncontrolled has contributed to the higher percentage of right angle crashes. We believe that in this case, Second Street should be stop-controlled due to the fact that Seventh Avenue is a U-Route ... failure to yield, too fast for conditions, alcohol and inattentive driving were all listed as contributing circumstances of the crashes.” The report added that rear-end crashes and same-direction-right-turns each accounted for 20 percent of the accidents. “After their study, except for the Fifth Avenue project, the intersection of Second Street and Seventh Avenue was the only one MDT felt needed to be changed,” Peterson said. “That could change with the (upcoming) project on First Street with the amount of traffic that will be diverted to Second, but that will be a determination made by MDT and their traffic safety people as the project progresses.”
