City Addresses Problem Brooklyn Park Intersections
A recent crash analysis identified problem Brooklyn Park intersections. Between 2016 and 2018 the city did a study of crash-prone areas and made improvements to three of them. One of the problem areas was 76th and Hampshire. The intersection has a two-way stop sign in the east-west direction, with no stop for north and southbound traffic.
“We had a sight visibility issue there, we had some blatant blow-throughs,” said Brooklyn Park Transportation Engineer Jeff Holstein. “Some people that were just inattentive drivers. They’re on auto pilot and they just missed the stop sign, or they had to slow down at the last second.”
To increase visibility, the city cut back some trees, made the stop signs larger and put a bright orange rectangle on top of the red octagon.
“Then back a couple hundred feet we add some stop ahead signs,” Holstein said.
Orange flags and flashing yellow arrows
Another problem Brooklyn Park intersection was 73rd and Zane. As with 76th and Hampshire, drivers going through stop signs was an issue at this intersection. The city increased police enforcement there, and orange flags are now above the stop signs.
“So far so good there,” Holstein said. “Those were implemented in October and I don’t think we’ve had anything since.”
The study also focused on 85th and Zane – which is the junction of two county roads. Confusion over yellow turn arrows had become problematic.
“We observed a lot of left turning crashes on that flashing yellow arrow,” Holstein said. “So we worked with Hennepin County to drastically restrict when the flashing yellow arrow will come up eastbound and westbound.”
Brooklyn Park does a crash analysis every three years to study accidents. There are some other problem spots in the city. Those are being looked into or improvements have already been made.
