OLEAN — A proposal to place stop signs on Front Street has hit a legal roadblock for now.
Olean Mayor Bill Aiello, in a report to the Common Council on Tuesday, announced he has vetoed two resolutions from the council approved July 25. The resolutions called for stop signs on Front Street at its intersections with Prospect Avenue and Spring Street.
“The Common Council directed the Public Works Director to conduct a traffic study on Front Street,” the mayor said in his notice of disapproval, filed with the city clerk late Friday afternoon. “Then, prior to the study being completed, Resolutions were put forth and passed for the Stop signs.
“In addition, the proposed stop signs open the City to increased liability due to the potential increase of traffic hazards. Emergency response vehicles will have a longer travel time and increased traffic congestion is likely to result with no apparent gain. Finally there are numerous property rights issues that need to be resolved at both locations.”
In a seven-page preliminary traffic study attached to the veto, the study indicated that the proposal to add stop signs “is not supported by the data, in accordance with the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), the New York State Highway Design Manual (HDM) and accepted engineering practices.”
The MUTCD calls for multiway stop controls if the traffic on the intersecting roads are approximately equal — Front Street sees between 342 and 685 vehicles per hour, while Prospect Avenue sees between 80 and 183 per hour. Similar figures were not included in the report for Spring Street.
The report also indicates the stop sign did not meet other MUTCD criteria, such as alleviating crash problems, with one crash reported at Prospect in the last year and none at Spring. The report also notes that no collisions between vehicles and pedestrians have been reported at either location in the last five years.
Noting that stop signs are not intended to be used for speed control, data reported during three Olean Police Department speed studies this year within a block of either of the proposed stop signs showed that 85% of vehicles on the street traveled under 35 mph, with the number of cars exceeding the speed limit accounted for between 0.6% and 3.4% of vehicles in the counts.
The study also indicated that as Front Street is expected to undergo reconstruction in the future, that is when intersection conflicts should be addressed for a more holistic engineering approach and avoid removing the signs after a short time period.
The traffic study also noted that, due to the placement of the stop signs, several driveways would be exiting into the controlled intersections
Under the city charter, the mayor must disapprove of most resolutions in writing within 10 days, not counting Sundays, to the council or clerk, with objections in writing attached, and filed with the city clerk. At the next meeting after the council receives the disapproval notification, the council must pass the proposed legislation with a two-thirds vote of the full council.
If the vote — with a minimum of five affirmative votes — is passed, the legislation goes into effect. If a simple majority approves, or if the majority disapproves, the legislation is discarded.
Local laws are governed by a separate set of procedures under the state’s Municipal Home Rule Law, which gives the mayor 30 days to veto and the council 30 days to vote again.
Alderman David Anastasia, D-Ward 7, asked the city attorney and council clerk if the council could move forward. “We passed it with a two-thirds majority,” Anastasia said, confident the council would pass it again.
The stop signs at Prospect were approved unanimously by the full council. Stop signs at Spring were approved 6-1, with the lone opposition vote being council President John Crawford, D-Ward 5. Six council members were present Tuesday, with Crawford absent.
A resident of the neighborhood, concerned over pedestrian crossings on Front Street, voiced opposition to the mayor’s veto.
Matthew Isenberg of West Spring Street, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, told the council that while he has never been involved in a collision, “I have been almost hit too many times to count” crossing Front Street. “I walk with my nephew, who has been almost hit too many times to count.”
Isenberg said he was almost struck recently and a city police officer in a marked car nearby did not intervene. He also said that when he complained to the mayor, the mayor said, “I need to have eyes in the back of my head” when crossing the street.
“At times we have to run across that street,” Isenberg said, “and you have a mayor who doesn’t want stop signs and a police department that won’t do anything.”
Aiello has issued only one veto to date, and has threatened few since taking over as the city’s chief executive in 2014.
The first veto, issued in the fall of 2022, was on legislation creating a civilian police review board. The resolution, originally passed unanimously, was reaffirmed in a 5-2 vote that December.
In 2019, the mayor said he would veto legislation allowing cannabis sales in the city if it came forward, but no such resolution ever went up for a vote by the council. After the state legalized such sales in 2020, the mayor said he would support sales under the state’s legal framework.
