Although several options for new stop signs and traffic measures were discussed at this past Tuesday’s Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association meeting, attendees voted to go in a very novel direction- taking out all of existing stops signs in the neighborhood for a trial period.

An OHNA officer described what happened:

I think we reached a point after so much deliberation, that some got frustrated and were ready to table the whole topic for the rest of the meeting, but then one of the new residents who was there started talking about when he previously lived in a small village in Maine that had no traffic regulation. That’s when a new motion was made to take out all stop signs for the rest of the year, and, surprisingly, people got fired up and we passed it.

One longtime resident said she voted for motion because she thinks it is one of the first steps towards outlawing most motor vehicle traffic in Oregon Hill altogether.

While calling it very unorthodox, City traffic engineers were not totally unreceptive to the group decision. They consider it a cheaper and simpler option than a traffic circle, which is harder to finance now that federal traffic grants have been depleted. They said no stop signs would hopefully, eventually force drivers to be more careful in their approaches to intersections.

Since it is likely that City Council will have to ultimately weigh in on this plan, there is no timetable as of yet for when it could possibly be enacted. In the meantime, some neighbors have already suggested that everyone should act like there are no stop signs and drive more cautiously anyway, given some of the speeding and bicyclist activity they have seen on neighborhood streets.