Decatur's Bermuda Triangle
Decatur Metro | September 2, 2008 | 3:03 pmAndy over at Fresh Loaf is calling for a traffic light at one of Decatur’s most dangerous crosswalks…the one that crosses W. Howard at Adair St. He even seems to have taken his life in his hands and taken a pic from the W. Howard sidewalk.
The Community Transportation Plan does address this area of W. Howard by turning the pretzel-of-an-intersection that is Atlanta Ave. into a straight connection between W. College and W. Howard.
Such a redesign will ultimately move the light currently at Atlanta Ave (near the Citgo) closer to Adair. But this plan is a few years down the road.
As someone who frequently turns right on to W. Howard from Adair in the morning, I can tell you it is pretty dangerous (though less dangerous than turning left onto Scott from Ponce Heights during rush hour!) to look left for traffic flying down Howard and at whomever is turning left onto Howard after crossing the tracks AND making sure there are no pedestrians crossing at the intersection. (I believe after the JavaMonkey girls where hit on their scooter on W. Howard, Scott commented that the crossing guard at Adair had said to him that she now turned away from impending car accidents because she was sick of being a witness.)
So maybe a traffic light at Adair is a good temporary solution. But I’m gonna guess there is some issue with traffic flow over the tracks and the light at Atlanta Ave that is currently preventing one. So instead we get waving crossing guards and a cop.