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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — A neighborhood south of Airport Road may be getting new stop signs to slow speeding drivers — even though the city’s traffic experts question whether they are needed.

City Councilman Bill Kling is sponsoring a resolution that would force the traffic engineering department to turn the intersection of Westbury and Alta Dena drives behind Holy Spirit Regional Catholic School into a three-way stop.

The council will discuss the idea at its Thursday meeting, which starts at 6 p.m. in City Hall.

Kling said he is taking matters into his own hands because the traffic department has been slow to respond to concerns raised by homeowners in the Fleming Meadows-Westbury Estates area.

Its civic association president, Tom McAdams, has spoken at several recent council meetings about drivers cutting through the neighborhood to avoid the congested Airport Road-Whitesburg Drive intersection.

“I’m not trying to throw my weight around,” Kling said Tuesday. “I’m just trying to get the neighborhood’s problems taken care of.

“When they’ve been to the council three or four times asking for help and nothing’s been done, I think it’s time for the council to step in.”

The traffic engineering department, led by Richard Kramer, installed speed humps on Westbury Drive a couple of years ago and is conducting a second traffic study this week to see if more improvements are justified.

Kramer was on vacation Tuesday and unavailable for comment.

McAdams said he has been trying since the first of the year to convince traffic engineers to do something about the Westbury-Alta Dena intersection.

“It’s a dysfunctional intersection,” he said Tuesday.

A January traffic study counted 1,394 vehicles a day on Westbury Drive with an average speed of 31 miles per hour. The posted speed limit is 25.

McAdams said all but one resident on those streets supports converting the Y-shaped corner into a three-way stop sign. Currently, there is only a yield sign for northbound traffic on Alta Dena.

“I really think it will be better” with a stop sign, he said. “It’s a good start.”

Kling, who represents the neighborhood, said stop signs seem like a reasonable way to tackle the problem. He estimates the project would cost the city $1,600.

If his resolution passes, the traffic engineering department would have three weeks to install the signs.

“I think it’s a little bit unfortunate that it would take a City Council resolution to get a neighborhood problem addressed by the traffic engineering department,” Kling said. “There’s an attitude in that department of, ‘We’re going to do it our way.’”

McAdams said he is scheduled to meet this morning with acting Huntsville Planning Director Marie Bostick and Dennis Thompson, a city traffic engineer.

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