Bloomington City Council failed to adopt a motion to override Mayor John Hamilton’s veto of an ordinance that would reinstall stop signs on the 7-line at Seventh and Dunn Street.
The council previously passed an ordinance 5-4 to reinstall stop signs at the intersection of Seventh Street and Dunn Street during their meeting Oct. 4. The council voted 3-5 to override, however they needed a two-thirds majority vote to override Hamilton’s veto.
During their meeting on Oct. 4, Councilmember Stephen Volan said the narrowly passed ordinance was only being considered based on anecdotes and offered other solutions such as bollards, which are short poles separating sidewalks from roads to protect bikers and pedestrians.
The council also unanimously passed an ordinance Wednesday to amend various sections of the Title 15 Vehicles and Traffic code.
“The proposals are a result of the public requests, feedback through commissions’ recommendations, or changes stemming from temporary 180-day orders,” the memo read. “The proposed changes would affect stop intersections, one-way streets, speed limits, angle parking, no parking zones, limited parking zones, loading zones, and bus zones.”
The council also took notice of angle parking. According to Law Insider, angled parking is a roadside car parking that is angled at 45 degrees for ease of pulling into spots. The city will add angled parking to Pete Ellis Drive.
Neil Kopper, senior project engineer for the city of Bloomington, explained the rationale of angle parking to the councilmembers during the meeting.
“It’s always context-specific, but big picture with back-in parking, it is generally viewed as lower crash risk because in back-end parking, it’s really easy to pull into your parking space,” Kopper said. “But then you’re oftentimes backing out into the street without adequate visibility. Whereas with angled parking, you see the traffic behind you, you see where you’re going.”
