Great Barrington — A state report issued four months after a car accident at the notoriously tricky intersection where U.S. Route 7 meets Monument Mountain Regional High School’s driveway says the intersection doesn’t meet its “crash volume and rate” threshold for adding a stoplight, and recommends the Berkshire Hills Regional School District construct an internal driveway that would send south-turning cars out to Monument Valley Road instead. The complete report is reproduced below this article.
But MassDOT says that would have to be on the school district’s dime, and estimates for such a driveway, according to Superintendent Peter Dillon would run in the $500,000 to $1 million range. “If you had $1 million would you do a science lab instead?” he said, with a reference to the 50-year-old school that is badly in need of upgrade.
“The main conclusion here,” the state report says, “is that this intersection operates in a safe and efficient manner. Given the low crash volume and rate, there are no identifiable accepted crash countermeasures that could be applied to reduce the crash rate…”
And, infuriating the parent of the teenaged driver involved in the crash, nowhere in MassDOT’s report is any mention of adding a stoplight to where there is currently a blinking light.
“It was a big fat no,” said Ben Hillman, parent of one of the drivers involved in the accident. “To me it was hostile,” given, he added, that the agency said they were “investigating every possibility.”
In January the 18-year-old Monument senior was attempting a left turn out of the school when she hit a southbound car that was blocked from view by a turn lane. None of the passengers were seriously injured. But the crash drew attention to the dangers of relatively new drivers entering and exiting on a fast busy road, combined with two turn lanes into the school that tend to block visibility of oncoming traffic.
And for weeks after the accident, the Internet was ablaze with parents saying that even they, as experienced drivers, find the intersection daunting.
Another accident there in February poured on another layer of worry.
The recommended speed limit was recently reduced from 40 to 35, but those who frequent the intersection know that rarely are those speeds adhered to. The Great Barrington Police Department has an officer there each morning during the arrival time, and the Stockbridge Police Department does the afternoon shift.
Dillon said the two departments were concerned about officer safety at those intersections, particularly during bad weather.
Local, state and police officials began meeting with MassDOT to explore the possibilities.
The Town of Great Barrington ordered dynamic digital speed signs, and those should be up and running soon, according to Selectboard member Ed Abrahams.
According to MassDOT engineer Mark J. Moore, “there have been 9 crashes specifically related to the intersection…that occurred during 4 years between 2012-2015 (2 involved vehicles turning into the school, 2 involve vehicles turning out of the school, one involves a left in and left out, 3 involve rear end crashes due to slowed vehicles and one involved a driver mistakenly in the right turn lane when he wanted to go straight through on Route 7).”
Abrahams wonders about MassDOT’s arithmetic. He says there may be “two flaws in their numbers” by using the 365 days to determine their ratio, when school is open 180 days, and the problem exists, for the most part, at school arrival and departure times.
“The vast majority of [teen] drivers are inexperienced,” Abrahams said. “[MassDOT] numbers are not going to account for the inexperience.” Abrahams said “a human being” rather than numbers should be the decision-makers here. “Hundreds of human beings have done exactly that. Everyone who’s ever driven there knows it’s risky.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get into the heads of these [MassDOT] people,” Hillman said, “and I’m having a difficult time. I come from a family of mathematicians, so it’s not unfamiliar territory. But just because people use numbers, doesn’t mean that the way they use numbers doesn’t suck.”
“The report says there’s no problem,” Abrahams added. “In effect they are saying we don’t know what we’re doing…that we’re all stupid.” He added that DOT says there are more accidents at the Monument Valley Road intersection that has a stoplight, and wonders, “is that because of the light or because intersection is more dangerous to begin with.”
Hillman can’t get his head around this one, either, after being told by Moore that more accidents happen at intersections with stoplights. “If that were the case,” Hillman said, “then they wouldn’t use stoplights anywhere.”
Hillman understands that MassDOT officials are just following rules. But he wonders about which rules. “Are the guidelines shit, and based on a ludicrous way of measuring things?”
Abrahams says while he’s frustrated with the pace of discussions, he’s still “optimistic” about a meeting with MassDOT officials this Friday.
Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox) began meeting with MassDOT and other officials since the accident. He told the Edge what was needed was “an intelligent conversation.”
And that, he added, requires pricing out the cost of a stoplight and the internal driveway. “Let’s nail that price down. I’ve always advocated an internal roadway, but what it’s going to come down to, is that the state can’t justify that money on an intersection that doesn’t warrant it.”
Pignatelli, who roughly 10 years ago helped the school district get the blinking light, said fingers are “pointing back and forth at each other in a round robin, but we need numbers.” He said one MassDOT official told him she would do “everything to expedite the permit process” if, indeed, a stoplight were decided upon. “And maybe there are things Ben [Downing] and I can do to get some state money.” He said there may be MassWorks grants and other state money available in some combination with local money.
He also suggested taking the traffic direction work “out of police hands” and perhaps hiring a traffic officer, “and comparing that cost, too.”
He said it would all be explored at the Friday meeting.
But Hillman worries that human reasoning is lost amid bureaucratic rigidity, and relayed a conversation he had had with Moore in his MassDOT office after his daughter’s accident. “ ‘If my daughter was killed,’” Hillman said he asked Moore, “…would there be a stoplight there now?” Hillman said Moore grew “flustered” and pale and said, “ ‘we would certainly be looking at it more closely.’ ”
And Dillon spoke to the challenges of money woes that clash with infrastructure needs, something that as Superintendent he is well familiar with. He said the options of an internal driveway or stoplight “may not be an investment people are willing to make, and all it takes is one really bad injury and we would have wished we had made the investment.”
The report on the Monument Mountain/Route 7 intersection:
