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Residents of Woodburn Estate subdivision want their neighborhood to be a safe haven for local children at play, but they don’t think the three-way stop sign at the intersection of Woodburn Drive and Charenton Lane is the answer. More than 55 residents have signed a petition for the removal of the sign.
“When I first became aware of the petition, I tried to understand the details of the situation by first reading the council minutes from May 26,” Brent Roundtree, a Woodburn Drive resident said. “A study was performed and a stop sign was installed. … The conclusion was that a stop sign should be installed due to an obstructive view caused by overgrown shrubbery and trees, that have since been properly trimmed.”
Roundtree doesn’t see the correlation between the stop sign and child safety.
“The obstruction of view has been rectified but the issue of child safety has not,” Roundtree said. “The stop sign is not affecting the safety of the children and the pedestrians of Woodburn. Vehicles merely slow down and roll on through, or they blow it completely. Some of those who do come to a legal stop are again speeding by the next cul-de-sac on Woodburn Drive.”
According to Roundtree, the stop sign gives families and children a false sense of security, and he asked Terrebonne council to remove the stop sign.
“A better solution is speed limit enforcement or children at play signage. These measures are much more congruent with the original concern and would enhance the safety of all Woodburn Drive, not just the corner at Charenton,” he said.
Justin Terrebonne of Thibodaux supports Roundtree’s request.
“I don’t think a stop sign is a necessary means of enforcing speed control. A 25 mph speed limit seems fast when you’re standing still, but that we can’t do anything about,” he said, and added that 33 out of the 66 lots in Woodburn signed the petition.
But Councilman Kevin Voisin doesn’t know if law enforcement is the right solution, either.
“I’ve [sent the police out] 10 or 15 times since I’ve been a councilman, which isn’t very long, and you know what you find? Eighty-five percent of people who get a ticket live right there,” he said.
Houma Police Capt. Greg Hood said that whenever the department gets a complaint, they will send an officer to monitor residential neighborhoods for awhile.
“To police them, it takes a lot,” he said. “I’ve had people tell me that you burn more gas stopping and going…Even though running the stop sign is illegal, if they just dip it at least they’re slowing down.”
Instead, Voisin proposed a more proactive approach.
“We have got to come to ourselves as citizens of the parish, the fix to this is not stop signs, it is not speed bumps. The solution to this is for us to be neighborly, and to understand that people’s children live in our neighborhoods, and to drive the speed limit,” he said. “When you drive the speed limit, no one behind you can speed until you get off the road. I really encourage people to go talk to your neighbors, instead of sitting in your house and getting angry.”
Hood agrees.
“It’s called a neighborhood for a reason, you need to be neighborly,” he said.
Councilman Billy Hebert asked to take no action on the matter and revisit it at a later date.
Many residents of Woodburn subdivision in Houma signed a petition to have a three-way stop sign at the corner of Woodburn Drive and Charenton Lane removed. They believe that the stop sign does not stop drivers from speeding in the neighborhood. JENNA FARMER
