One morning in October 2021, an SUV struck a child crossing 3rd Avenue on Hobbs Drive on her way to Thunder Bay Junior High School.

The vehicle went over the child but its tires did not strike her.

Thankfully, the then-11-year-old suffered only minor injuries.

But things could have been worse.

That incident cemented in our minds and the minds of many Northeast Michiganders that something needed to happen at that intersection.

It took three years, but the city installed a new traffic light system that went operational late last year.

The new system is designed to allow traffic to flow through the intersection more safely, with more wait time for cross traffic. It also prohibits turns on red lights so pedestrians — a great many of them children on their way to and from school — can cross without risk of injury.

The new system has created some traffic backups and made motorists wait longer at the light, but the city said in a news release last week that “the overall goal of installing the new traffic light is pedestrian safety and was not intended to shorten commute times.”

That’s what needed to happen there.

We sometimes take for granted how quickly we can get from point A to point B in Alpena. Most people who live in town take fewer than 10 minutes to get to work in the morning.

But making sure our children can get to and from school without getting run over should be a shared citywide goal, and accomplishing that goal is well worth a few extra moments spent waiting at a light.

We know longer commutes can be frustrating, but we’re glad the city did what it did at that intersection, and we motorists will just have to learn to work with the new system in the name of safety.