“See-Me” flags are available at the crossing of Church Street/Depot Road and Main Street. Photos by Megan Kelley

By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
CLARKSTON — Pedestrian safety has been a topic of conversation within the City of the Village of Clarkston for some time now with near misses taking place at several intersections within the city on a regular basis and one official police report of a hit and run that occurred earlier this year.
Because Main Street, which runs directly through the city, is a thoroughfare road, the road sees quite a bit of traffic throughout the day including large trucks and vehicles coming off of the highway. Four intersections within the city have been areas for concern when it comes to pedestrian safety. Those intersections are: Clarkston and Main, Washington and Main, Church/Depot and Main, and Waldon and Main.
City officials including city Manager Jonathan Smith as well as the city council have increased efforts to combat this issue but they’ve run into roadblocks when it comes to working with the Michigan Department of Transportation.
“MDOT isn’t working with us,” said Smith, who has invited MDOT to attend a council meeting to further discuss what can be done to increase pedestrian safety in the city but to no avail. Because of this, council has attempted to take small steps on its own to help make crossing the road safer for pedestrians such as implementing “See-Me” flags at the intersection of Church Street/Depot Road and Main Street.
With a majority of the parking in the city on the west side, there is a lot of pedestrian traffic to get to the restaurants on the east side.
“Part of the problem is all of our parking, or the majority of it’s on the west side of the road. So during evening hours, dinner hours, there’s a lot of traffic going across here,” Smith said.
The flags themselves are a relatively cost effective way for the city to provide tools for pedestrians to utilize when crossing the intersection. The bright orange color increases visibility both during the day and at night. As of right now, the program is essentially in its pilot phase and is going well, Smith said.
“So far it’s going well. I think people use it, it’s just, getting people accustomed to using it,” Smith said.
Smith added that he has seen people cross at the cross walks without even looking to see if cars were coming, noting that it’s especially alarming with the knowledge of how often people are almost hit while crossing the road.
Another thing city officials emphasized was just simply using common sense and making eye contact with drivers before crossing the road.
“Common sense is first and foremost, but on top of that – it’s almost like defensive driving, you have to always think that they’re going to hit you, unless they’re completely stopped,” said Mayor Pro Tem Laura Rodgers. “Just be aware and make the eye contact.”
The city is also looking at other potential things they could do like putting in bump outs so there is less of a blind spot at the intersections and increasing the signage, both of which the city would likely have to work with MDOT to achieve.
“Hopefully we can work with MDOT and Jonathan is trying as hard as he can,” Rodgers said.
Should the city find the “See-Me” flags useful and should pedestrians continue to utilize them, city officials indicated that they would likely implement them at some of the other cross walks within the city.