Stop signs installed at Berry Road intersections
Motorists, take heed: Two new stop signs have been erected along Berry Road in South Strabane at the rear entrance to two popular shopping centers.
The township’s public works department installed the signs Monday morning, and turned Berry Road’s intersections with Old Mill Boulevard and the Strabane Square entrance into three-way stops.
“Generally, we’re just hoping that it slows people down a little bit,” said Jordan Cramer, chief of South Strabane Fire and Emergency Services and interim township manager.
The township’s board of supervisors decided to add the stop signs after rejecting a recommendation from the planning commission in May that would have closed Berry Road near the Old Mill Boulevard intersection. In that scenario, only drivers traveling Berry from Locust Avenue would have had access to Old Mill and Strabane Square shopping centers.
Township officials hope the stop signs will make Berry a safer roadway. According to Cramer, many accidents in the past year have led to multiple people being hospitalized.
“Berry Road is one of the most dangerous township roads,” Cramer said. “This is kind of step one in attempting to make it safer. It was also the most feasible.”
Safety on Berry Road has been a focus for supervisors this year as a pair of large developments are planned for the area: Menards home improvement store in the Old Mill shopping center and a new Freedom Transit facility at the former site of Tower Golf.
Going forward, Cramer said they are going to see how the stop signs affect traffic on Berry Road, and that supervisors hope to have an engineer complete a study for other potential changes.
“I think we’re going to try to evaluate what happens in the coming months,” Cramer said.