In the nearly two weeks since two-way traffic was instituted downtown, Police Chief John Rodger said there’s been “occasional confused motorists” but no accidents or incidents to report.
Like many motorists, I was a little surprised to see the consecutive blocks of Stop signs along Irving Street: Elizabeth Avenue, Elm Avenue (photo left), and Poplar Street.
Rodger said the city is evaluating potentially removing Stop signs at either Elm or Poplar, “but it’s too soon to tell.” He first would like to see what additional parking would be eliminated with the removal of the Poplar or Elm Stop signs. “Once that’s done we will see what the best course of action is,” he said, declining to put a timeline on the evaluation.
The Stop signs at Elizabeth and Elm actually save some parking spaces. Rodger said there can’t be parking without the Stop signs because of “line of sight issues with vehicles traveling both ways on Irving.”
About 40 parking spaces in all were eliminated downtown since Stop signs actually minimized the reduction of parking spots, he said. Originally, it was expected that more like 60 spaces would be eliminated. There are more intersection modifications planned in the future.
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Crossing Irving Street in the morning was like playing a game of “Frogger” as cars would regularly rocket by in excess of 40 mph. Ditto with Main Street by Elizabeth Avenue. It’s nice to be able to cross the street now and not worry about being run over by a driver looking to arrive at work 20 seconds earlier!
I hate that they eliminated spaces on Milton near the train. Now you have to park on the side street to stop and buy a paper or pick up dry cleaning.What is this town thinking? Do they really need a turning lane at such a “busy” corner?? This is not helpful to our mom and pop stores.
The new pattern is much better. Once drivers, and more importantly pedestrians, get accustomed to the change I’m sure the extra stop signs will be eliminated.Do we really need cars on Cherry Street? With an entrance to the municipal parking lot on a now 2 way Main Street it’s very accessible from any direction. Having brick replace the road on the last block would make for a wonderful pedestrian thoroughfare with minimal impact on traffic flow.