Elm Street/Hood Avenue to be four-way stop

The intersection of Hood Avenue and Elm Street in downtown Sisters will now be a four-way stop.

Public Works Director Paul Bertagna proposed the change at last Thursday's city council meeting and it was quickly approved.

The new stop signs and temporary warning signs will be placed on Thursday, September 29.

The move is designed to increase safety. A bicyclist was injured in a collision with a car at that intersection earlier this month, although Bertagna noted that the cyclist ran the existing stop sign on Hood Avenue when the oncoming vehicle on Elm Street clipped his back tire and spilled the cyclist onto the pavement.

"We didn't want to four-way-stop Sisters to death, but it seemed like a reasonable solution for this intersection," Bertagna said.

Many drivers, particularly tourists, seem to naturally stop on Elm Street anyway. Bertagna noted that previous fire chiefs have wanted to keep Elm Street free of stop signs for access to Highway 20 from Sisters Fire hall, but that is no longer a significant issue. Assistant fire chief Ryan Karjala signed off on the change.