Students leaving Broken Arrow School and South Junior High approach the crosswalk at 27th and Belle Haven Drive, Friday, April 24, 2015, as school lets out.

An army of temporary stop signs soon may be deployed to reduce the amount of traffic on a busy section of 27th Street.

Lawrence city commissioners at their meeting Tuesday unanimously asked staff members to come up with a plan to place more stop signs along 27th Street between Iowa and Louisiana streets.

“I know four-way stop signs are what would cause me to avoid 27th Street,” said City Commissioner Leslie Soden.

Staff members said they would present a stop sign plan to commissioners at their May 26 meeting.

Commissioners, though, tried to make it clear to neighbors along the street that the stop signs are designed to be temporary and likely would need to be removed once 31st Street between Iowa and Louisiana is reopened in mid-summer. The temporary closure of 31st Street as part of the South Lawrence Trafficway project caused traffic volumes on 27th Street to spike by about 6,000 vehicles per day.

“One of the real concerns I have, though, is that once you put a stop sign in place, they are really hard to remove,” said City Commissioner Mike Amyx, who said neighborhoods often lobby hard to keep stop signs. “I don’t care how interim you make them, they are really hard to remove.”

Mayor Jeremy Farmer said he also had a concern about the stop sign plan, although he ultimately supported it. He said he’s concerned that traffic off 27th Street will instead use a combination of Arkansas and 25th streets to cut between Iowa and Louisiana streets. Other commissioners, though, said the amount of on-street parking that occurs on 25th Street likely will deter cut-through motorists. Commissioners would like for traffic to use 23rd Street to get between Iowa and Louisiana.

Commissioners heard more than an hour’s worth of public comment from residents near 27th Street. Several residents urged the installation of multiple stop signs because they would be inexpensive to install and would be the quickest way to impact traffic on the street.

Several residents, though, also said they wanted the commission to consider more permanent traffic calming measures for the section of street, such as traffic circles and speed cushions. Commissioners said they wanted to delay debate on those measures until they can see how traffic patterns change once 31st Street is reopened this summer.

Commissioners, however, did direct staff members to look at how to build about 2,500 feet of sidewalk along the north side of 27th Street. That side of the street is lacking a sidewalk, which has created safety concerns in the neighborhood adjacent to Broken Arrow Elementary and South Middle School.

Commissioners also want to consider adding a pedestrian-activated crossing signal on 27th Street near where Naismith Park intersects with 27th Street.

In other news, commissioners:

• Unanimously authorized the mayor to join the Mayors for the Freedom to Marry coalition, which supports ending bans on same-sex marriage.

• Unanimously agreed to submit a grant application to receive Kansas Department of Transportation funding to rebuild 23rd and Haskell with additional right turn-lanes and other improvements. The city is seeking a $1 million grant that would allow the intersection to be rebuilt in 2017.