On a misty morning in October, Ted Anderson and his 13-year-old daughter Katy were on their way to school. They approached the stop sign at Pearson and Gaston (less than a block from their home on Country Club Circle), and pulled up behind one of their neighbors waiting to turn onto the busy street — a precarious morning ritual the Andersons and their neighbors have become accustomed to.
“During rush hour, you basically have to leap out into traffic. It’s not uncommon to sit there for a while waiting to pull out,” Anderson says.
When his neighbor finally decided to turn out, he was struck by a car traveling down Gaston. Both vehicles spun around, the neighbor’s truck coming to a stop facing heavy oncoming traffic. The other car hit a fire hydrant.
No one was hurt in the accident, but the Andersons, along with neighbor Jim Grau and his family, are worried that those involved won’t be so lucky next time.
“It’s been a constant source of frustration for all of us,” says Anderson of the traffic problem on Gaston. “We are all petrified that one day something will happen to one of our kids out there.”
For the past few months, Grau has been working on a remedy. The problem, he says, is that Gaston, between Cambria and Brendenwood, has too much traffic moving too fast.
During meetings with city council members, the police department and city engineers, Grau discovered that his area of Gaston is one of six sites in the Dallas Police Central Patrol Division that received a special grant to reduce speeding. Effective Dec. 1, DPD officers will be stationed on Gaston, between West Shore and Richmond, three times a week, for one four-hour shift per day. Those traveling over the posted speed limit — 35 mph — will be ticketed. The grant program will last through Sept. 2005.
“Hopefully, it will slow people down, which in turn correlates to fewer accidents,” says Sgt. Fred Katani.
While Grau and Anderson are pleased the city has recognized the problem, they say issuing tickets is a temporary solution. So Grau asked the city to install a stoplight at Gaston and Pearson.
After Grau’s request, city engineers conducted a study on three intersections along Gaston — Pearson, Cambria and Brendenwood. None of the three met the criteria that would allow for a stoplight. According to Lloyd Denman, program manager with Dallas Public Works and Transportation, Pearson had less than one-tenth of the traffic required to even consider a signal.
“It doesn’t even come close to coming close,” he says.
The engineers also looked at the intersection’s crash history, and Denman says during the past three years, there has only been one right-angle crash (getting rear-ended on Gaston doesn’t count for stoplight purposes).
According to Denman, there are other alternatives to a stoplight: One is to restrict left turns from side streets during peak traffic hours.
“That would be the best course of action. A traffic signal would not reduce volume or speed,” Denman says.
Unsatisfied with the city’s traffic study and unwilling to restrict their ability to make a left turn onto Gaston during peak traffic hours, Grau and the Andersons have been going door-to-door in the neighborhood circulating a petition requesting a stoplight.
“The engineers say it doesn’t meet requirements,” Grau says. “The petition may not be the mechanism to get a light, but it is the mechanism to let officials know that this is a community issue.”
