By Erin Brody, Arts and Culture Editor
Drivers of Saint Vincent College may have been surprised to see two new stop signs at the Beatty County Road and Monastery Road intersection or, perhaps, drivers have been unknowingly running these new stop signs.
“Wait, they put in stop signs,” Catie Dzikowski, freshman math major, said.
Despite the stop signs being on the edge of the Saint Vincent campus, SVC was not involved with implementing the signs.
Vaughn Neil, county engineer of Westmoreland County Public Works, explained that his department of the Westmoreland County government made the decision to replace the yield signs.
“Our department has maintenance responsibility for Beatty Road,” Neil said. “My department thought it was necessary to update the signage to modern standards.”
According to Neil, Monastery Road – formerly named St. Vincent Drive – was under PennDot’s jurisdiction but was “vacated” since it “is now classified by the County Road
Department as a private drive subject to the requirements of highway code where it enters the County Road.”
Both students and staff seemed surprised upon hearing about the stop signs, perhaps wondering how long they have been treating these signs like the former yield signage. Anticipating this reaction to the change, the Westmoreland County Roads Department took an extra step to ensure road safety by adding red flashing lights to the signs to draw attention to the new signs.
However, while a yield and a stop sign have vastly different meanings, Neil said there is “no traffic impact anticipated,” as it should only take a few more seconds to come to a full stop rather than yielding. Failing to stop at these new stop signs, nevertheless, could still result in a fine for the driver.