The wait is over for the Grand/ San Juan Association of Realtors.
Almost four years ago, the group offered to donate 300 pedestrian traffic flags to the City of Moab.
During the association’s regular board meeting in the summer of 2012, several in attendance noted that they recently observed cars nearly hit several pedestrians walking down crosswalks on Main Street.
After much discussion on various solutions, it was decided to install flags at the most-used crossings. Realtor Joe Kingsley was assigned to get the flags, while Lenore Beeson and Kingsley would meet with former Moab City Manager Donna Metzler to get city permission. Metzler liked the idea, Kingsley said, but said that Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) permission was necessary before anything could be done.
After checking with UDOT, permission was declined, and instead, UDOT installed blinking yellow lights at the 200 South and Uranium Avenue crosswalks.
“As everyone knows, the yellow blinking lights are confusing to locals and visitors alike,” Kingsley said.
In response to that confusion, the city recently revisited the flag idea, and UDOT gave the city permission to temporarily use the flags that the Realtors purchased.
UDOT is planning to install more advanced traffic lights at the crosswalks as soon as possible. During the first week of May, UDOT began the engineering work for the new light systems, Kingsley said.
