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Pipestone City Council members during their Feb. 5 meeting voted to replace the traffic signals at the intersection of Main Street and Hiawatha Avenue with a four-way stop.
The Pipestone City Council has decided to replace the traffic signals at the intersection of Main Street and Hiawatha Avenue with a four-way stop with the signs on decorative poles like this one at the intersection of Main Street West and Second Avenue. K. Kuphal
The topic was added to the agenda at the start of the meeting after one of the traffic signals was damaged by a truck on Thursday, Feb. 1. A four-way stop sign was placed in the middle of the intersection after the incident.
Mayor Dan Delaney said it was expected to cost about $6,000 to replace the traffic signal. He said he didn’t think the traffic flow warranted a traffic signal at the intersection and that making it a permanent four-way stop would probably be less expensive and meet the city’s need to make the intersection as safe as possible. He did, however, express some concern about pedestrian safety without traffic signals.
“My only concern with a four-way stop versus the traffic signals is that you’re pretty much on your own as a pedestrian when it comes to a four-way stop, so you’re relying on the people behind the wheel of those vehicles to give you the proper berth in the walkway, which is the pedestrian has the right-of-way,” Delaney said. “There would be no light to say it’s safe to cross without those traffic lights.”
Councilor Scott Swanson said all the intersections downtown have painted crosswalks, so it should be clear to drivers that there might be pedestrians crossing. Regarding vehicle traffic, he said, the problem with the traffic signals at Main and Hiawatha is that the lights are too low and stick out over the curb because they were retrofitted to fit the existing poles, which were installed in the 1990s and are shorter than the poles that were there before.
“They’ve been a problem since the beginning,” he said. “It’s numerous times that trucks have hit them going around corners because of them sticking out in the street.”
There were previously traffic signals a block to the west at the intersection of West Main Street and Second Avenue, but those were replaced with a four-way stop in 2017. Swanson said the city bought decorative poles that match the others in the downtown area to put the stop signs on at that intersection and could do the same for the Main and Hiawatha intersection. The cost of those poles, which are made for stop signs, was expected to be less expensive than replacing the one damaged traffic signal.
City Engineer Travis Winter said he thought the council’s decision to install a four-way stop at the intersection at Main and Hiawatha was the correct move.
“A four-way stop is the most efficient traffic control measure there is, especially in a low-speed, low-volume area,” he said.