The intersection of Elm Street and 12th Avenue on Tuesday evening, June 10, 2025.
Almost five years ago, the Albany City Council turned down a recommendation to put stop signs on Elm Street at 12th Avenue. Now the subject has popped up again.
Ward 1 Councilwoman Steph Newton-Azorr, who was not yet on the council in November 2020, brought it up.
At Monday’s council work session, she asked that the city staff look into making the corner of 12th and Elm a four-way stop. It’s a matter of traffic safety, she said, especially for children who have to cross Elm on their way to and from Takena Elementary school.
Twelfth Avenue has stop signs at Elm, but Elm itself does not. In 2020, the city’s Traffic Safety Commission proposed adding the signs on Elm. The council, by “consensus” according to the minutes, took no action.
Traffic on 12th was not heavy enough to warrant a four-way stop at that corner, the council was told at the time
A long time ago, Elm Street served as Highway 99E, and it is still a straight shot between Fifth Avenue downtown and the highway going south. Drivers typically go faster than the posted 25 mph on the stretch from Queen Avenue north.
At Queen and Elm, by the way, the city plans to add red-light and speed cameras later this year.
If traffic on 12th did not justify a four-way stop in 2020, I doubt that the picture has changed. The pavement on 12th west of Elm is so potholed that drivers want to avoid it if they can.
So whether Newton-Azorr’s request goes anywhere will depend on whether the city still wants to follow the same guidelines on stop sign placement it followed five years ago. (hh)
Councilwoman Newton-Azorr at the council work session on Monday, June 9, 2025. (Photo from YouTube)
This neighborhood already has so many stop signs. Takena is K-2nd and very few kids walk to school. Most are dropped off by parents or the bus. That intersection also has well marked crosswalks.
First, the council chooses by “consensus “ to not take action on a recommendation by the city’s Traffic Safety Commission in 2020. A relatively inexpensive step to improve safety for pedestrians (children and adults). Now, 5 years later they’re willing to spend a lot more money on red light/speed cameras on a nearly corner – a solution that hasn’t proven itself to be cost effective in other locations!
People seem to have a hard time understanding that the goal is to keep traffic moving, not impede it.
Mac,
The problem is that our society has turned into a “all about me, all about what I want.” so the balance of a piece of what everyone wants goes by the wayside. This ME, ME, ME attitude will end up ruining it for everyone else.
Not sure what potholes have to do with drivers picking and choosing roads – North Albany Road has a RR crossing that’s falling apart and nobody is avoiding that road. But still, this is a failure of imagination and what WILL happen to roads in the future. As a city morphs and grows, roads get used differently – some are used less frequently, others more so as a way to avoid traffic. Drivers are ingenious in finding ways to go through a residential neighborhood to avoid a major arterial that’s blocked or slow, to the detriment of the residential street that now has cut-through traffic. In the meantime, it seems nobody cares about the kids walking to school – that’s just wrong – and having to see if “warrants” (a city and traffic word) make it so, well, sometimes common sense is needed more than “warrants”.
I agree.
A more progressive approach is required.
Given everyone should accommodate every kid who still walks to school, the city should install 4-way stop signs at every intersection in every neighborhood within 5 miles of every school.
Newton-Azorr proposes a nickel & dime solution to a $100 problem.
Come on city council, exercise your power and impose a common good solution here. It will make you feel better in every morning.
Gordon, it’s these common cents solutions like yours against the broad brush of progressive-ism that have caused so much upheaval in our society of late. If only the wisdom of the ages comprehended your discerning faculties. I am sure you would agree it’s all those social programs, like “social” security, Medicare, fire departments and the national guard as you are silently and tacitly eluding to, that have caused us to be shortsighted, lazy and boorish, while feeding off the wealth generated by the hard working “elites” rather than the working class. I suspect, like you, that Neighborhood safety is just a big fat money waster when folks, like you, can get a lawn chair, a stop sign and a government inspected and approved yellow safety vest to step right in, fill the breach, and really solve the problem. I commend you, Sir!
Your grammar and spelling betray you.
I propose the City ban loaded log trucks that destroy curbs like at 14th & Tudor.
I haven’t heard CROSSING GUARDS! FYI they were often parents who volunteered to be at locations like this one during the times that the youngsters were crossing. The volunteers came from the parents of children attending that particular school.
Just a thought.
Was it really that long ago that Elm Street was narrowed and now looks like it does ???
I have had 2 instances walking my child to/from school where I have almost been hit crossing when it was presumed safe.
Elm NEEDS a stop sign.