Long Beach letters

Stop-sign

crusade is needed

To the Editor:

While my neighbor Richard Boodman's signs may be controversial, there is no doubt that his ongoing efforts for a coordinated system of all-way stop signs has led to effective changes that have drastically improved traffic safety on Lincoln Boulevard (“Dead man’s corner?” Oct. 8-14).

The corner of East Olive and Lincoln Boulevard was good for an accident a month and skids and closes calls for the 20 years I’ve lived here. With every accident, neighbors would acknowledge the need for stop signs and police officers would concur and promised me they would report this to traffic control. But it was Boodman and fellow neighbor Bob Shanley’s hard work on this issue that finally got the stop signs in place, and this neighbor is very grateful.

So many driver, often distracted while on cell phones, speed through our neighborhoods to avoid red lights on Broadway and Park Avenue or rush down boulevards to get beach parking. Engineers should recognize that all-way stop signs on the boulevards are as vital as speed bumps on narrow Canals or West End streets to retain our quality of life.

Some have suggested that rather than all-way stop signs, we need signs reminding cyclists that they will lose a battle with a car in a collision. I can only hope that a driver will never experience telling a child hit by his vehicle that it was the child’s fault, that the motorist had the right of way. Better that the motorists in a powerful car remember that he is riding past homes and his neighbors live in them.

Maybe, along with the stop signs, we need a sign for motorists entering our city that reads: “Welcom to Long Beach, New York State’s premier health-active, recreational city by the sea. We love our walkers, runners, cyclists and skater. Share the road! Speed limits and traffic laws strictly enforced.”

Neal Monteko

Long Beach