New stop signs went up on Northfield Street at Muskingum Avenue in the El Medio Bluffs on Wednesday, May 27, creating a four-way stop at an intersection residents said was dangerous.
Neighbors rallied for the four-way stop after a March 7 collision on a downhill section of Northfield that sent a bicyclist and a teenage pedestrian to the hospital.
“It was a very serious accident,” said Northfield resident Karen Ridgley, who added that her own child was also struck near the same intersection years ago.
Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
“Northfield is a favorite downhill speeding venue for cyclists, skateboarders and cars,” she said.
Stop signs previously controlled traffic only on Muskingum while Northfield had no stop signs for approximately 1,500 feet between Almar Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, according to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT).
Ridgley and fellow Northfield resident Ginny Kovner are block co-captains of the local Neighborhood Watch and held a meeting where residents began talking about the dangers of the intersection.
“At the Northfield Watch meeting, most neighbors were adamant in their concern for the safety at this intersection for their children and themselves,” Ridgley said. “There are at least nine families with young children, plus four adult resident families on Northfield between Wildomar St. and Palmera Ave. who requested the all-way stop sign.”
Two residents said they didn’t want additional stop signs on Northfield.
The neighbors eventually reached out to LADOT.
Brandon Wilson, an LADOT Transportation Engineering Associate and a graduate of Palisades High School and Paul Revere Middle School, met with the residents and set in motion a traffic engineering study of the intersection.
After completion of the study, LADOT found that the installation of stop signs was justified.
In a traffic control report, Mohammed Blorfroshan, a Senior Transportation Engineer at LADOT, wrote that installation of all-way stop signs at the intersection will “promote the safe and orderly movement of traffic.”
On Saturday, May 30 when the neighbors met for a photo shoot for this article, they noted that each and every car they saw drive through the intersection made a full stop at the new stop sign. Two cyclists, however, blew through the stop sign without slowing, they said.
—FRANCES SHARPE
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