City abandons plan for one-way sixth street

For the past few months, Havre City Council’s Streets and Sidewalks committee has been discussing the possibility of changing 6th Street into a one-way street to decrease excessive traffic, speeding and accidents.

This proposal came mostly from Havre Police Chief Gabe Matosich, who’s said that the street just gets too much traffic and they see a lot of accidents and speeding, with the intersection between Sixth Street and Ninth Avenue being particularly problematic.

The committee, the police department, and City Council Member Josh Miller, who is not on the committee but lives on Sixth Street and has been acting as an advisor to the committee, have been gathering public opinion on the proposal and the results were discussed at the meeting.

Committee Member Denise Brewer said the opinion of the community as a whole was about 50/50, but the residents of Sixth Street were very against the proposal, with 92 percent of respondents opposed.

Miller, who helped the committee get responses from as many people on Sixth Street as possible, said while the responses were primarily negative, they were generally thoughtful and respectful.

He said the survey got many lengthy responses laying out people’s concerns and reasoning, and while practically everyone on the street knows the issues the police department has been dealing with are serious they don’t think making the street one way is the best solution.

The committee, having gone over the responses, seemed to mostly abandon the one-way idea.

City Clerk Liz McIntosh proposed only changing the area of Sixth Street between Seventh and Ninth avenues to a one-way street, to disrupt traffic just enough to help alleviate the issue without changing the whole street.

Committee Member Sarah McKinney said she thinks that’s a good idea, but Miller and Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson had some reservations about the idea.

Peterson said he’s concerned that a disruption like that would push people into the surrounding area including the streets around St. Jude Thaddeus School, and that’s an area where increasing traffic could be potentially problematic.

After some discussion the committee seemed to settle on an approach of placing more stop signs and increasing the enforcement of traffic laws.

Brewer said Matosich sent them a letter suggesting that stop signs on Sixth Street where it intersects with Eighth, Ninth and Tenth avenues may make people use other streets more, which may disperse traffic more effectively and cut down on some of the issues they see.

Peterson said he’s been discussing that possibility with Havre Mayor Doug Kaercher.

Miller said some of the areas they’re talking about already have yield signs, but they are really not being paid attention to by a lot of people and while officers can pull people over for ignoring them, changing them to stop signs would make enforcement of violations easier.

The committee discussed a number of possibilities regarding the placement of signs but didn’t make any firm decisions.

One thing they discussed is the possibility of using stop signs with flashing LED lights.

Miller said these signs serve not only as a warning but allow police officers to be more forceful in ticketing for infractions.

“It lets officers say, ‘How did you miss it?’ when they’ve got someone pulled over,” he said.

He said the lights are installed with blinders like street lights and while they are always blinking the light is fairly soft, so he doesn’t think they will be too much of an annoyance to nearby residents.

On the enforcement side of things committee members suggested that officers be more aggressive not just in watching the area but in giving tickets instead of warnings, which will serve as a deterrent to speeding.

McKinney asked if the department has the manpower and resources to keep closer eye on the area and McIntosh said they will still be facing staffing issues for the next six months but they have new people at the academy so that could be changing soon.

The committee also discussed repainting curbs and the dividing line in the street, but both might be difficult, the curbs because so many are deteriorated and the dividing line because yellow paint has become hard to come by for Public Works.

Peterson said he’s been looking everywhere but it’s just difficult to get it in any serious quantity.

Peterson asked that before they make any determinations he would like to get estimates on the costs for the things they’re talking about to see how it would affect the city’s budgets.

McIntosh suggested the committee make a priority list of things they want to address so Peterson can give them an idea of how far they can go before budget’s start getting strained, and the committee agreed.

Before the Street and Sidewalk Committee meeting, the Council of the Whole met at 6 p.m. to conclude its budget hearing.

Council passed the budget for the coming fiscal year after hearing no public comments.

The budget passed unanimously, as did a resolution fixing annual tax levies for the coming fiscal year.

The council also unanimously passed a number of resolutions assessing specific taxes for the upcoming year on final reading.

The first was one to defray the cost of maintaining street lights, the second was to defray the cost of maintaining streets, the third was to defray the cost of Bull Hook maintenance and the fourth was to defray the cost of solid waste services.