ANAHEIM : City Rejects Request for 4-Way Stop Sign

The City Council this week denied a request for a four-way stop sign at an intersection near an elementary school, saying that traffic in the area is not heavy enough to warrant one.

Residents near the intersection of Iris Street and Winston Road have been fighting the city staff for three months in an attempt to get a four-way stop sign installed, arguing that children walking to Paul Revere Elementary School have to dodge cars when they cross the intersection.

But the council agreed with a staff report that said the intersection does not meet city criteria for a four-way stop sign and that installing one would actually make the situation more dangerous. The council, however, ordered that a crosswalk, covered up during street repaving more than a month ago, be quickly repainted.

“I’m pretty upset,” said Rene Rey Serrano, a 24-year-old Orange Coast College student and neighborhood resident. Serrano led the group pushing for the stop sign, going so far as to produce a videotape that showed children dodging cars.

“I know that there can be differences between a report by professionals and what the people in the neighborhood know because we actually live there,” he said. “We see the speeders. We see the children.”

The intersection is regulated by a two-way stop sign that controls northbound and southbound traffic on Iris. Winston does not have any stop signs.

Particularly worrisome to residents has been the westbound traffic on Winston, which enters the neighborhood from Anaheim Boulevard. Residents say motorists often exceed the 25 m.p.h. speed limit.

There were no preventable accidents at the intersection within the last year, and at its peak between 3 and 4 p.m. daily the average traffic flow is 409 vehicles, the report said.

The report also said that a four-way stop sign could make the intersection more dangerous because there is a high likelihood it would be frequently ignored and that children could cross in front of the cars, assuming they will stop.