Stop signs at intersections on Bloomington’s 7th Street: Dunn for now
The status of stop signs along Bloomington’s 7th Street remains unchanged after Wednesday’s meeting of Bloomington’s city council.
The stop signs along the street have been the subject of controversy, since they were removed in connection with the construction of the 7-Line, which opened in November 2021.
The 7-Line is a two-way separated bicycle lane that runs along the south edge of the street, from the B-Line trail on the west, to Woodlawn Avenue at Indiana University campus on the east.
On a 7–2 vote, the city council defeated an ordinance that would have added back all-way stops at a total of five additional 7th Street intersections into city code. Dissenting were Dave Rollo and Andy Ruff.
Included in the five intersections that were subject to the city council’s Wednesday’s vote was the one at 7th and Dunn streets. The 7th and Dunn stop signs will remain there, as they have for a little over a year.
Before it was re-installed last year, the all-way stop at 7th and Dunn was one of those removed in connection with the construction of the 7-Line.
The all-way stop at 7th and Dunn was reinstalled in mid-April of 2023, based on a 180-day order from city engineer Andrew Cibor. That 180-day order was based on crash numbers before and after the stop signs were removed.
Last October, when the 180-day order was nearing its expiration, the permanent installation of the all-way stop at 7th and Dunn was put in front of the city council. The ordinance considered by the council would have done one thing—ensconce the 7th and Dunn all-way stop as a part of city code.
But in October 2023, there was a narrow 5–4 council majority in favor of adding along 7th Street three more stop signs, which had previously been removed. That ordinance was vetoed by then-mayor John Hamilton. It meant that in order for the all-way stop at 7th and Dunn to persist, the city engineer had to issue another 180-day order.
It was the pending expiration of that order that led city engineer Andrew Cibor to put another ordinance in front of the council for Wednesday, to make the 7th and Dunn all-way stop permanent—as well as add all-way stops at the other four 7-Line intersections.
Based on Wednesday’s deliberations, the 7th and Dunn intersection is not controversial for councilmembers. There appears to be unanimous support on the current edition of the council, as there was on the 2023 edition, for making permanent the all-way stop at 7th and Dunn, by putting it in city code.
It’s the other four intersections that are disputed. The number of crashes at the other intersections is not as high as for the 7th and Dunn intersection (before all-way stop reinstallment), but still high enough to warrant reinstalling all-way stops there, in the view of city engineer Andrew Cibor.
In fact, that’s the view that Cibor took in 2023, when he made a recommendation to reinstall all of the previously removed all-way stops in the 7-Line corridor. But after getting input from the city’s traffic commission and the bicycle and safety commission last, Cibor asked the council in October to consider an ordinance that restored just the all-way stop at 7th and Dunn.
Based on added crash data since October, Cibor this year again recommended the reinstallation of all the stop signs along the 7-Line street segment. Again this year, the two resident advisory commissions disagreed with Cibor.
At a Monday meeting of the bicycle and pedestrian safety commission, a vote on the motion to accept all five city-engineer-recommended stop sign reinstallations was 2–2 with one abstention.
At its April 24 meeting, the city’s traffic commission considered the city engineer’s recommendation to re-install all five stop signs. The traffic commission voted 7–0 to recommend reinstallation of an all-way stop at the 7th and Dunn street intersection. The reinstallation of the stop sign at Morton Street had 5–2 majority support on the traffic commission. But the recommendation to support installation of stop signs at all five intersections failed on a 3–4 vote.
One kind of objection from some councilmembers to reinstallation of the all-way stops at other intersections, besides the one at 7th and Dunn, is related to a data question. There is no breakdown in city engineer Andrew Cibor’s numbers between kinds of crashes—car-car versus car-bicycle versus car-pedestrian.
Another kind of objection relates to the overall approach the city takes to evaluating whether a stop sign should be installed at an intersection. It’s not holistic or comprehensive, but instead targets some subset of intersections, like those along the 7-Line, so goes the objection.
The motion used by the council to defeat the ordinance was to postpone it indefinitely, which has the same effect under Robert’s Rules and local code as voting it down.
The all-way stop at the intersection of 7th and Dunn still needs a current 180-order from city engineer Andrew Cibor in order to remain in place. To eliminate the need for future 180-day orders, the council would need to pass an ordinance that puts the all-way stop into city code.
So the council wants Cibor to bring back a different ordinance, that just done one thing—puts the all-way stop at 7th and Dunn back in city code.
It would have the same content as the ordinance that Cibor asked the council to consider in October of last year.
