County, city fight over safety at crosswalk

Prince George's County transportation officials vehemently rebuffed College Park City Council members who were seeking a stoplight for a Paint Branch Parkway crosswalk at last night's meeting.

The intersection, where the Paint Branch hiker-biker trail crosses the highway, has seen at least three accidents this year in which motorists ignored a flashing yellow light to stop and struck either a pedestrian or bicyclist, or a car that stopped as required in front of it, officials said.

"I just live in fear that tomorrow or next week I'm going to hear about another accident, and this one would be a fatality," said District 3 Councilwoman Stephanie Stullich, who has led the city's recent efforts to improve safety at the crosswalk. At one point in the meeting, Stullich broke in to tears while arguing her case.

But Andre' Issayans, deputy director of the county Department of Public Works and Transportation, told the council the intersection didn't have nearly enough pedestrian traffic to justify a stoplight. He also blamed city officials for pushing what he called an inherently dangerous location for the crosswalk.

Paint Branch Parkway is a county road College Park cannot do any work on itself. The county follows federal highway guidelines, which require 100 or more pedestrians crossing per hour for at least four hours or at least 190 for any one hour, plus fewer than 60 gaps in traffic per hour. When the county last studied pedestrian traffic at the crosswalk several years ago, traffic engineers observed only around 30 pedestrians over several hours, Issayans said.

The council sparred spiritedly with Issayans and two of his colleagues over the current safety measures at the intersection: pedestrian-activated flashing yellow lights for which cars must stop, as well as new rumble strips and signs for both motorists and pedestrians explaining the signal that were installed Monday.

"The county has spent a lot of manpower and energy making that location safe," Issayans said. "We are trying to enhance the crosswalk as much as we can."

The county may also install speed cameras on that stretch of Paint Branch Parkway next year, he said, which would issue automated tickets to drivers traveling at more than 12 miles per hour over the speed limit of 35.

But Stullich and other council members said a speed camera wouldn't solve the widespread safety problem of cars ignoring the pedestrian signal.

"I appreciate the additional enhancements, but it seems to me that a red light means stop and a yellow light doesn't," Stullich said. "This is just not a workable system."

"A speed camera doesn't get people to stop at an intersection — it gets people to drive 35 miles an hour," District 1 Councilman Patrick Wojahn added. "The people who were in these accidents could have been driving the speed limit, so I don't see how that's a solution."

But the county officials blamed College Park for what they called an unsafe location for the crosswalk — a location the city had lobbied for to make the hiker-biker trail possible.

"That crossing should not have been there. It was the wrong place for it, and College Park pushed for it," Issayans said.

It's much safer for pedestrians and bicyclists to cross a highway at a signalized intersection, he said, and he recommended they instead cross Paint Branch Parkway at Route 1 to the west or at the fire station to the east.

Stullich said the trail is necessary to offer convenient car-free transportation to residents, essential in curtailing excess automobile traffic. And as it is, she said, it's dangerous for pedestrians to cross.

"I just don't see how we can live with ourselves if we don't make this crossing safe," she said.

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