ALAIEDON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Ingham County is taking a closer look at a busy intersection to see if it needs safety improvements.
Charlene Andrews-Purvis is one of the residents asking for changes at the intersection.
She has lived near the corner of Hagadorn and Sandhill for years-and her parents before her.
“We’re afraid that it’s going to be one of us that lives in the neighborhood that’s going to get wiped out,” Andrews-Purvis said.
She says traffic at the intersection is so bad, one afternoon she sat on her porch with her dog and counted the cars.
“Six hundred cars going through this intersection,” Andrews-Purvis said.
Her daughter Heidi Purvis made a Facebook post about her discussion with the county about the intersection. That post got the attention of the community with several comments of residents thanking her and sharing stories.
“By the time they hit my driveway they’re going 60-65 miles an hour,” Andrews-Purvis said.
After a light was put up at the intersection about a mile a way, residents waited for theirs.
But it never came. Now the Ingham County Road Department says they’re doing another one.
“We had been planning for a while to study the intersection now that the Jackson National Life office expansion at Okemos and Sandhill has grown,” Managing Director Bill Conklin said, “There was a traffic study done when that complex was proposed to be expanded. That study found that a traffic signal was immediately going to be warranted due to the increased traffic.”
The Ingham County Road Department says there were seven accidents at the intersection in the last year.
“Six of those involved people not obeying the stop signs that are in place on Sandhill Road,” Conklin said.
Jerry Hanks lives at the intersection and can agree. For him, the danger has hit a little too close to home.
“My granddaughter who lives upstairs here was getting off the school bus and almost got hit by a car that came over Sandhill too fast and didn’t stop for the bus,” Hanks said.
Hanks suggested rumble strips to slow people down. His daughter was one of the people who commented on Heidi Purvis’ Facebook post and thanked her.
The county plans to have the survey completed by the end of July or early August.
They explained that they are required to follow a uniform traffic manual under Michigan law and conduct these surveys before making changes to avoid excessive traffic controls.
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