where can I find information about the benefits of changing an intersection into a four-way stop?

Question

I have to find sources and/or information that will help me persuade the city council

Answer 1

If your purpose for the information is to get an intersection changed then what you need is info on how to do that.

First, get a petition going and write down the address of all the people near the intersection and have them sign the petition. Try to get at least 2/3's of the people anywhere close to sign. If you can do this then, give the petition to your immediate local government supervisor or alderman, or whatever they call them where you live. He will want to get with the highway department or the planning commission and see about getting the signs up and the street painted with the stop lines.

Answer 2

The best place to find "the best" information about the safety benefits of changing and intersection into a four-way stop sign is - unfortunately a library. The Transportation Research Record is probably the best resource for peer-reviewed transportation research available in the United States. Unfortunately, you will probably have to go to a college/university's engineering library to find it. You can search the following website for articles, but most of the articles aren't available on-line.

http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/tris/help.do?topic=about_tris

Whether a four-way stop is safer is dependent on a variety of factors (traffic volumes, speed of roadways, angle of intersection, etc.). I can tell you that a popular safety measure that is growing in popularity is constructing a modern roundabout at intersections as opposed to four-way stop control. There are less conflict points at a roundabout and no one can run a stop sign. Here is a link with some information about roundabouts.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/roundabouts/

I'm a traffic engineer and think modern roundabouts are great alternatives to four-way stop control intersections and signalized intersections.