City reviews traffic study report

There could be a stop sign on the corner of every boulevard. That's one option the City of Long Beach is considering in an effort to make its streets safer as it reviews a traffic report that officials commissioned earlier this year.

Both City Manager Charles Theofan and Kevin Mulligan, commissioner of the Department of Public Works, said they plan to examine the report's findings soon, possibly this week. "There's a draft in our hands, and we're reviewing it to provide comments and look for the consultant to incorporate those comments," Mulligan said.

The city met with an independent traffic consulting firm, the Hauppauge-based VHB Engineering, prior to the report's June 10 deadline to discuss the placement of stop signs, and will now analyze three years of data on traffic flow and accidents. "We're looking to come up with a little more consistency throughout the city," Mulligan said.

The city commissioned the traffic study after the family of Joseph Shannon — a 76-year-old who was riding a bike when he was struck and killed by a school bus at East Olive Street and Monroe Boulevard in July 2008 — filed a wrongful-death suit against the Long Beach school district and the city last year. The study included that intersection and the surrounding streets for litigation purposes, but after the suit was settled in February, the city could have ended the study, but instead decided to continue it, said Corporation Counsel Corey Klein.

"[The study will address] not specifically the question of that intersection, but overall the traffic flow within Long Beach," Klein said at the time.

Last September, Richard Boodman, who lives at the East Olive-Monroe intersection and saw Shannon lying in the street after the accident, posted election-season signs on his house — some blaming Long Beach Republicans for Shannon's death, and one that read, "If this corner had a stop sign, a bicyclist might not have died."