Selectmen Address Traffic Concerns, Calming Plan

Echoing concerns on a handful of Westwood's back roads, residents on Monday night pressed the Westwood Board of Selectmen to ultimately take action to improve safety on the streets. 

A large majority of residents from Conant Road and Dover Road, among other neighborhoods, voiced concerns, specifically around protecting the many children and young families that live in their neighborhoods and on nearby streets. 

While the Selectmen did not specifically approve a proposed Phase 1 Neighborhood Traffic Calming Study, they do plan to discuss how to fit such a project into the town's capital budget moving forward. 

More immediately, though, officials said they will request extra police presence within a day or two in an effort to improve safety and cut back on speeding in the area as quickly as possible. 

"We can start that as soon as the day after tomorrow," Selectmen Chair Pat Ahearn said Monday night after the Board listened to the residents' concerns. "I think if you write more than a few tickets, you can alter behavior."

Ahearns comments were rewarded with applause from a room filled with residents, some of whom outright begged for a measure to be taken to help improve traffic on the roads. 

"There are 107 kids that get on the bus every day," Jim Connolly, a Conant Road resident said. "And I'm livid. It's totally unfair to walk a kindergartner or first grader. The people go up our street at 40, 45, 50 miles an hour […] I've had it, and I'm begging you guys to do something."

Likewise, Country Lane resident Anne Kelly pleaded with the Selectmen to move forward with a traffic calming measure. 

"There's no stop sign on Country Lane," she said. "Do you know what it's like to walk down those streets? There are cars ready to take you out at any point in time. It's just extremely dangerous."

The issue of throughout the year, as Westwood Officials and Representatives from Beta Group, Inc. have held a number of public meetings, during which they presented findings from the traffic calming study and proposed solutions before accepting feedback from residents of such neighborhoods as Dover Road, Conant Road, Country Lane and Lorraine Road, among otheres. 

Traffic along those roads tends to bulge at the seams during morning and evening rush hour commutes, the study finds, as motorists use the roads as a way to cut through and around High Street, traffic on which frequently sits at a dead stop during rush hour. 

Beta Group's traffic study found that an average of 536 vehicles pass through the neighborhoods between the hour of 7:15 and 8:15 a.m. Monday through Friday, saving an average of about five minutes from High Street traffic. Moreover, about 300 vehicles pass through during the evening commute. 

As a solution, Beta Group proposed the Phase 1 solution that would cost the town about $250,000 to implement and would comprise the following traffic-calming measures: seven speed humps, two alternative pavement locations, one speed table, one raised intersection and one center island. 

"We're also recommending the painting of fog lines and center lines throughout the network," said Jason DeGray, Senior Project Engineer of Beta Group said during a presentation of the plan Monday night. "We do suggest up front this is something we should definitely try."

DeGray elaborated that the main cause of the problem is High Street; ultimately it would be that main road that would need to be altered in order to completely fix the problem, either by adding a travel lane to both sides of the road or by another extensive measure, he said. However, moving forward with such a project would be both time consuming and costly. 

"The probability of doing anything that would completely get rid of this incentive is relatively low," DeGray said. "That's something that really is not in the cards for the future."

While the Selectmen said they could address the issue by adding police patrol to the neighborhoods to help encorce and control speeders, they were clear that they plan to discuss a way to fit the project into the town's plans moving forward. 

"We've heard your call for enforcement; I'm at this point in time committed to try to figure it out," Ahearn said Monday night in response to residents' concerns. "One of the the things we're considering this year is we have a highway bond that is coming off of our books. It's money we bonded a long time ago . . . we're asking the town to replace that bond. That's one of the things we need to think about."