Mount Prospect residents question added stop signs

Mount Prospect resident Cindy Niersbach never wanted a stop sign in front of her home at the intersection of Columbine Drive and Tano Lane.

"Drivers stop and look directly into our home," she told the Mount Prospect Village Board on Tuesday. "The noise of cars stopping and starting wakes my daughters up in the middle of the night."

Niersbach's neighbors, Jack Cavalenes and John LaTona, backed up her claim at the meeting.

"Aesthetically, it takes away from our neighborhood," LaTona said. "I would say 75 percent of the cars don't come to a complete stop, anyway. To me, it's less safe."

The stop sign was installed about four months ago and is part of a massive neighborhood traffic study that began in 2005, village traffic engineer Matt Lawrie said. The study divided the village into 18 sections looked at more than 700 intersections, he said.

"We methodically went through and reviewed each and every street," Lawrie said. "Before, the village was a hodgepodge of traffic controls."

Thanks to the study, about 300 stop signs were added to some intersections while another 40 or 50 were removed, Lawrie said.

So far, he hasn't heard many complaints besides those coming from Niersbach and her neighbors.

And he's listening, he said.

The village will evaluate the stop sign changes twice in 2010 and report back to the village board, Lawrie said.

"If there are changes that need to be made, we will make them," he said.