MARFA — From debates posted on a local Facebook group, it’s clear that Marfans have a wide variety of opinions about new flashing stop signs installed in the past two weeks at the town’s main intersection and around the courthouse, but the agency behind the new devices, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), doesn’t seem to have asked anyone about whether the signs should be erected. A ring of red lights surrounds the octagonal signs, blinking on and off, with some of the signs also flashing on and off.
“I think they look terrible,” said Clark Childers — co-owner of The Lincoln Marfa, a boutique hotel on the town square — who can see the signs flashing at night outside his lodgings. “We have one of the most beautiful downtowns in the state. That is a precious resource. I don’t know why they were put in by the state, and no one asked if we wanted them.”
Childers posted his feelings on a local Facebook group with mixed reactions. One person called the signs “garish,” while others stated if they make the streets safer, then who cares about the aesthetics. Childers also noted the negative impact to people trying to take photos of the historic courthouse.
Some Marfans said they still hold fond feelings about the lone blinking red light above the Highland/San Antonio intersection, which has been symbolic of the city and is often cited in articles as the one-traffic-signal town. TxDOT took that light down. “There was something about it that was so nostalgic, so charming. Nothing will be charming with these things,” Childers said.
TxDOT did extensive studies of Highway 67 from 2018 to 2020 with dozens of public meetings and detailed reports on public comment — but nothing mentioning flashing stop signs could be found by The Big Bend Sentinel in both a master plan of recommended improvements or in reports on public comments.
“I did not hear anything about them,” said City Manager Mandy Roane.
“No, no one told me about them,” said Presidio County Judge Joe Portillo, who said he attended all of the TxDOT public meetings on the Highway 67 Master Plan.
Precinct 4 County Commissioner David Beebe said he also attended all the meetings and doesn’t recall anything about flashing signs or stop signs at all at Highland and San Antonio.
Those officials did know about changes TxDOT planned in 2021 around the courthouse, as a September 8, 2021 article in The Sentinel noted: “The Lincoln and Highland intersection currently has one stop sign, one yield sign and one right-of-way with no sign, but will now change to three stop signs.” The Marfa City Council even approved the changes, but nothing was ever mentioned about making those stop signs flash. The signs were an alternative to a recommended roundabout in front of the courthouse — a plan nixed because of a variety of factors, including mobile homes in transport not being able to navigate a roundabout.
TxDOT had significant community input from area citizens for its 2020 Highway 67 Master Plan for locations around Marfa — including Highland Avenue and San Antonio Street. And what did the community and TxDOT ultimately favor for improvements there? The plan recommended a two-lane street for San Antonio with “bicycle and pedestrian” facilities and Highland “upgraded to a four-lane street” and a “striped buffer with bicycle lanes.”
But Marfa doesn’t have bike lanes or a four-lane main street — instead it has flashing stop signs.
A spokesperson for TxDOT said the Marfa flashing stop signs were part of a Highway Improvement Safety Program project that uses federal funds directed to states for safer roads and highways. “One of the targets for the year of programming was to be proactive and treat major rural intersections in the El Paso District with safety enhancements,” TxDOT Spokesperson Jennifer Wright wrote in an email to The Sentinel. “The particular intersection mentioned was reviewed for safety and operation and the recommendations for the site were to enhance awareness of the stop condition. This will target the prevention of pedestrian and intersection angle crashes.”
When asked about the analysis that went into the signs — crash reports, formulas for increased safety and other technical details — Wright said that information would need to be sought in an open records request, which The Sentinel filed this week.
Childers said he’s looking into rules and recommendations for historical districts — including Marfa’s downtown — to see if there’s any leverage there to fight the signs. “Luckily I think [the signs] can be replaced, if the state desires to do it,” he said.
The Big Bend Sentinel will continue to cover TxDOT’s infrastructure projects in Marfa, as well as in Fort Davis and Alpine.