The “No Left Turn” sign has disappeared from Nathanael Greene Park

Springfield Daily Citizen colleague John Tate recently informed me that the no left turn sign at Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial Park that I wrote about in April has disappeared.

It first appeared on April 22, under a stop sign attached to the same pole.

The effect of the new sign on traffic was that drivers exiting Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial Park at Scenic Avenue could not turn left onto Battlefield Road, but only turn right onto Sunshine Street.

The park entrance/exit from Scenic is approximately halfway between Battlefield and Sunshine.

I wrote about this because it seemed rather inconvenient for visitors leaving the park who would prefer to turn left on Scenic to get to Battlefield. I thought it was worth asking why this sign was necessary.

To ease traffic jams at the exit

I called the Springfield-Greene County Park Board in April and spokeswoman Jenny Fillmer Edwards provided an explanation.

“It’s to reduce traffic jams caused by vehicles exiting the park,” she said. “Certainly we experience delays during festivals, major events or even busy weekends. But even on a normal weekday, traffic can be backed up by multiple cars when someone tries to turn left.”

The short exit road from the park to Scenic has only two lanes, one in each direction. It doesn’t take much to get traffic jammed.

Edwards said the no-left-turn sign was used during the Japanese Fall Festival, held each year the weekend after Labor Day at the Mizumoto Japanese Garden. After the festival ended, the Springfield-Greene County Park Board removed the no-left-turn sign.

“The staff there decided to put it back in,” Edwards said a few months ago. “We certainly could have used it before Monday. But it wasn’t until Monday that they realized we could put it back in. The reasoning is that it’s very busy there all the time.”

In April, Edwards said the no left turn sign would remain in place for the “foreseeable future.”

We have apparently arrived in the “foreseeable future.”

I called Edwards back: Why was it removed?

That’s because the Springfield Department of Public Works informed the parks board that a no left turn sign cannot share a traffic sign pole with a stop sign.

This is Pokin Around column #197.