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Where's that stop sign?

Where's that stop sign?

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
March 14, 2009

Truck parking for deliveries on the Square is a huge problem. First of all, truck drivers usually cannot find a place to park to make necessary deliveries on the Square. When they do, often they cannot get all the way out of a traffic lane and into curb parking.

One of the things lacking on the Square is Loading Zones. So what do truck drivers do? The best they can.

This driver, making deliveries at Angelo's last week, did a good job of parking his tractor-trailer unit along the curb. Wish I had been there to see that! He should have gotten a prize for parallel parking that day.

And the best that he could do was to park where he did, with the cab well into the crosswalk and the truck entirely blocking the Stop sign on Dean Street at the corner by Angelo's.

Now just imagine a motorist unfamiliar with the Square (or even familiar with it), who drives up Dean Street, comes to the corner, slows down and makes his right turn. What if one of Woodstock's finest had been sitting there waiting for him, instead of watching for speeders on Route 47.

Ka-ching! Ring up $75. Clean out the driver's wallet. And forget about his coming back to spend money on the Square.

Or worse. What if a pedestrian stepped out from in front of the truck, just as the motorist ran the stop sign (that he couldn't see)?

You can see the stop sign. Just look between the cab and the trailer. (Click on the photo to enlarge it; then click on the Back button on your browser.) Of course, you have to be standing on the sidewalk in front of the Opera House to see it!

The solution is easy and inexpensive. Just place a temporary Stop sign on a short sawhorse on the sidewalk by Angelo's. Tell those who receive deliveries at Angelo's to put the sign in the street while the truck driver is delivering. Or tell them to tell the driver to put it by the left front tire of his truck. Probably the same drivers deliver every week to Angelo's; they'll quickly understand the reason for doing so.

Will the City think outside the box on this issue?