There are no stop signs northbound on Houghton Road from Interstate 10 to Prince Road, where drivers hit their first stop sign. At the next major street, Catalina Highway, a flashing red light and a stop sign tell drivers to stop.
Reader Shari Sidransky wrote to inquire about the four-way stop at North Houghton Road and East Prince Road.
"There used to only be stop signs on Prince. Then, they installed stop signs on Houghton so now it is a four-way stop. We could not figure out why they did that. We are still baffled," she wrote.
"It makes sense to have traffic stop on Prince, to get across Houghton. But drivers who are traveling on Houghton sometimes do not see their stop sign, and they run through it without stopping," Sidransky said in an e-mail.
Drivers in that area are focused on the flashing red light at Catalina Highway and Houghton, and they skip the Prince stop sign because they don't see it, she said.
People are also reading…
"Is there any way to petition the county to remove the stop signs on Houghton?" Sidransky asks.
The stop signs at Prince and Houghton were installed after the county did a safety study in 2004, said Annabelle Quihuis, spokeswoman for the Pima County Department of Transportation.
The safety study checks traffic volume and crash data, which is used to make a recommendation, she said.
County traffic engineers, using the national standards for the safety study, determined a traffic control change, i.e. the stop signs, was warranted, she said.
That stop doesn't require a flashing light, either, she said. But the Catalina Highway intersection with Houghton needs the flashers because of the curve in the road and to show people there is a change in traffic control ahead, Quihuis said.
The visibility of the stop signs at Prince and Houghton is clear, she said.
Quihuis said the department will check to see if larger stop signs should be placed at that intersection to improve visibility.
Road Runner
Andrea Kelly
Road Q
Question: "It's been well over a year since I noticed that the intersection of Speedway and Columbus has no street sign at all. Too bad for people, driving on Speedway, looking for Columbus," Martin Mannlein wrote to Road Runner.
Answer: The city replaced the poles at Speedway and Columbus as a matter of maintenance, said Michael Graham, spokesman for the Tucson Department of Transportation.
The city is planning to test signs with larger letters — 12 inches tall instead of 8 inches tall — at that intersection. Before those new signs can be installed, the city needs to get brackets from the vendor and is currently waiting to receive them, Graham said.
When the brackets arrive, the new signs will be installed.
