FAYETTEVILLE (KFSM) -- The Fayetteville City Council has approved an ordinance to keep people off city medians.
The council voted unanimously. Police are prompting a change in the city.
"We want everyone to be safe on a roadway, and we don`t believe that someone standing in a median or on a gore of a roadway is safe," Sgt. Anthony Murphy with the Fayetteville Police Department said.
Murphy added, "The medians in these particular locations are just too dangerous to be allowing pedestrians or anybody else to get there and walk up and down them."
Previously, city code didn't define the word "roadway". City attorney Kit Williams proposed an ordinance for roadway to mean from the curb on one side of the road to the curb on the opposite side of the road. In turn, that makes medians parts of roadways.
"It should be defined to include a median where it`s so narrow and there`s no crosswalks to it, so that it is very unsafe for someone to either go there or to stand on it if it`s in a high traffic area," Williams explained.
Williams said a change is needed to keep people safe.
"It`s clearly a dangerous situation, and those areas are not meant for pedestrians to stand on or do anything else on, and from a safety point, we don`t really thing they should be there," Williams added.
Murphy agrees and said this move is not targeted at panhandlers, but anyone in the middle of busy traffic.
"Some people would ask has anyone been injured that has been standing on these medians, and I would say, do we have to wait for someone to be injured to define what a roadway is," Murphy said.
This will go into effect 31 days after the mayor signs it. Police will then offer a 30-day grace period, in which warnings will be given rather than citations. A ticket for standing on a median will be no more than $25.