Stop sign at Windermere intersection will stay in place

To stop or not to stop. That is the question.

And for now, the red octagon installed in January at the intersection of Forest Street and Second Avenue in Windermere will remain in place.

During a Feb. 14 Windermere Town Council meeting, council members discussed whether to remove the new stop sign. All the residents in attendance, except for Windermere resident Karen Fay, argued that the stop sign was necessary because it had the potential to keep their children safe from speeding cars.

However, its installation was done despite a $20,000 town-funded study in June 2016 that suggested the installation of a yield sign.

This difference of opinion encouraged Windermere Council Member Bob McKinley to suggest the council discuss the issue. 

Near the end of the discussion, McKinley made a motion to conduct a second engineering assessment of the intersection to determine whether a stop sign is, indeed, warranted at the site. However, the motion did not gain a second vote from the council.

McKinley further asserted that he did not think the town’s reasons for placing the sign at that site were valid and implied that perhaps the real reasoning stemmed from the potential political influence of certain individuals who lived in that part of town.

But according to the inspection report for the intersection, two safety issues formed the basis for the town’s conclusion that the intersection warranted the placement of a stop sign. 

The first stated that “the narrowing of the roadways causes a choke point where vehicles have to veer off their normal course of travel as they approach the intersection.” The second held that because the area around the intersection becomes prone to flooding after heavy rainfall, the limits of the intersection’s roads became harder to identify.

Regardless, McKinley, along with other constituents, opposed the newly installed stop sign. Out of the 10 emails sent to him regarding the stop sign issue from Feb. 7 to Feb. 14, nine residents opposed the stop signs and one approved.

In an email dated Feb. 7, Windermere resident Deedee Sherman wrote she believed the speed bumps were sufficient for keeping traffic under control. Resident Susan Carter also wrote to McKinley opposing the stop sign, pointing out the inconvenient location, which occasionally experiences flooding and makes cars “susceptible to getting stuck.” Carter proposed adding another speed bump instead for those concerned with children safety.

And in an additional email dated Feb. 14, locals Brian and Kathy Brackney maintained the town’s reasoning was not justified because incident data provided by the Windermere Police Department failed to prove the intersection had been a major source of crashes or speeding tickets in the past.

Data gathered from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles showed that from Jan. 1, 2010, to Feb. 1, 2017, there had been no vehicle crashes at the intersection. 

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Contact Gabby Baquero at [email protected].