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New Albany to install radar signs on busy, accident-prone street

The signs will also help collect data in the area to help the city when it looks to improve public safety along the corridor.
Credit: WHAS11
Radar rode sign

NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WHAS11) -- There are many signs along Spring Street in New Albany - stop signs, parking signs, and speed limit signs, to name a few. But there is one sign, a homemade red sign nailed onto a telephone pole, that may be the most important, marking a makeshift memorial for the man who was killed at that spot in August.

"I was devastated to hear about it," Brian Steele, who lives on Spring Street, said. "He had a lot of friends around here that knew him on the skate park down on the riverfront."

Matt Brewer died after he was hit by a minivan while riding his skateboard at the intersection of Spring Street and Ninth Street. Brewer's family and those who live in the area said drivers are often going too fast, which could lead to more deadly accidents.

"A lot of people like to put the lead foot down and they're not careful," Steele said.

"Hey, this may be just a street that you drive on, but this is a neighborhood that people live on as well," New Albany city engineer Larry Summers said.

The city already turned Spring Street from a one-way street into a two-way street last year, which it claims has helped reduce some of the speed. The city will also be installing speed radar signs along Spring Street between State Street and Vincennes Street in the first week of December, which will show drivers how fast they are going and flash a warning if they are driving too fast.

"I see people when they're driving and they see the sign flashing that, 'I'm going fast. I need to slow down.' And so you see them tap the brakes and get down to a normal speed," Summers said.

The signs will also help collect data in the area to help the city when it looks to improve public safety along the corridor. According to Summers, the city will rent the signs at first and then depending on how effective they are, the city will look into buying them.

The signs are already in use along McDonald Lane about a 10-minute drive from Spring Street, where Summers said he has noticed some people slowing down when presented with the warning.

But some living along Spring Street believe more needs to be done to increase public safety, especially when it comes to enforcing the speed limit.

"Make people more aware, if they see people getting stopped more frequently, they would start slowing down when they come through here," Steele said.

But they all hope these changes will help remind people to slow down to make sure memorials like the one on Ninth and Spring won't have to go up again.

►Contact reporter Dennis Ting at dting@whas11.com. Follow him on Twitter (@DennisJTing) and Facebook.

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