The Munster Town Council continues debating how to reduce speeding on the town's roadways. Much of last week's meeting was spent discussing Ridge Road, but council members also talked about Main Street and other areas.
The town had been pursuing a "complete street" redesign for Main Street west of Hart Ditch, that would have added a grass median with curbs. The area could get much busier when the southern terminal of the West Lake Corridor opens next year. But the council has decided to remove the planned median, due to concerns that it would slow down emergency responders, along with speeding motorists.
Still, council member Chuck Gardiner felt a median could be designed to allow fire trucks to cross it, if needed. "I think that the concern is that we're going to keep Main Street being as fast a Main Street as we can, and we're not looking at some traffic engineering ways to reduce the speed on Main Street," Gardiner said.
Despite that, he and the rest of the council unanimously agreed to pay DLZ an additional $146,600 to update the design. It removes plans for the median and a sidewalk along the south side of Main Street, while keeping a planned multi-use path on the north side of the street. It will also allow for a center turn lane between Sheffield and Calumet and a left turn lane at Cobblestone Road.
Meanwhile, council members are also considering an ordinance that would lower the speed limit on Fran-Lin Parkway from 35 to 25 miles per hour and add stop signs at six locations around Munster. However, Gardiner warned against using stop signs simply to slow down traffic, citing guidance from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
"In neighborhoods that there's speeding going on, they're really ineffective because all people do is they roll through a stop sign, and then they keep on going faster until they get to the next one," Gardiner said.
Others argued that the stop signs are part of a larger strategy to reduce speeding that also includes more police officers on the streets.
